Watch out for the (stage) invasion of the Space Cudets as Cud head to Cambridge

Die-hard fans of “heritage” indie band Cud are notorious for their stage invasions during raucous encores.

Their exuberant, funky tunes have always inspired the crowds to get on their feet and frequently that has meant the audience clambering up to join the band for a singalong.

However, bass player Will Potter reckons there could be a spanner in the works due to creaky hips and knees.

“Now our fans are a little bit older, they struggle to climb up to the highest stages!” he says.

And this may come as a bit of a relief to the band.

“They may not pay attention to where they’re going or collide directly with the bass guitar, which happens quite a lot. I can get a bit annoyed by that,” Will adds.

The stage invasions kicked off at a 1990 gig in Bradford’s Queen’s Hall, which happened to be reviewed by Sounds magazine and have continued as a tradition ever since.

Will says: “Just a few people started to get on stage and then it filled up and it got photographed and there was a review in the music papers, and then everyone thought this is what you do at a Cud show and it became every single show, usually in the encore.

“We tried to deter it to an extent because we did end up with people trampling over equipment, trampling over effects pedals and pushing us aside basically so it became their show rather than ours. I personally don’t enjoy it because you know you’re trying to play the songs as well as contain all the crowd. But it’s also a good time thing and if people enjoy it, let it be.”

The four-piece indie rock band formed in Leeds in 1987 and built up a cult following in the city before breaking through to the top 40 in 1992 with singles Rich and Strange (which reached number 24) and Purple Love Balloon (27).

A huge name among students in any northern city in the late 80s and early 90s, they never benefited from Britpop, becoming popular just before that wave of bands and were on the cusp of major success when they signed to A&M Records, but were misunderstood by bosses.

They split in 1995 but have been reformed since the mid-noughties, touring up and down the country during school holidays - when their guitarist, Mike Dunphy, can get time off from his other role as a an assistant headmaster.

Will, who is now a children’s author and comic book artist, says of the split: “It was about record company politics rather than any problems in the band. We had a major deal for a few years. And after the success of Rich and Strange, they just said ‘more of the same, please’. We did our best to please them and recorded an album, which they hoped would break it in the States to make their money back. It didn’t. And they just kept sending us back to the studio and it put a lot of stress on the band, because our money had to last between albums.

“Mike, as the main songwriter, felt a lot of a burden to write and that did cause some frictions as well. In the end, I could see the way it was going. And I decided to quit because we hadn’t toured for about a year. We were writing more, more and more songs that were being rejected. So it was time for me to move on and do something else with my life. And I wanted to do comics. When I left, the band continued for another year with a guy playing bass called Mickey Dale who’s now the keyboard player in Embrace.

“They never released another record and eventually they just had to pay bills. And that’s where problems with bands occur, when they have to split the money and try to find some other way to support themselves. So that was all kind of sad. We didn’t know that our last show was our last show.”

The band went their separate ways and got other jobs but then they reformed in 2006 to promote the release of a double album of their greatest hits: Rich and Strange - The Anthology with a UK tour.

Since then Cud have rediscovered their love of performing live and the current line-up is Car Puttnam (vocals), Will Potter (bass), Mike Dunphy (guitar) and Gogs Byrn (drums). They have found various anniversaries to celebrate that would require a tour.

Will says: “We did what every other heritage indie band does and theme a tour around an anniversary or something like that. So we’ve done all the singles. We’ve done anniversaries for every album and played every single track from every album. When we came to this tour, I said, why don’t we just call it the annual tour? I did some artwork based on a 1970 pop annual and deleted Gary Glitter and Donny Osmond from the cover, putting us in their place. So the tour isn’t heavily themed - we will just play our most popular songs and the ones we enjoy playing.”

As well as the top 40 singles, there are plenty of fan favourites to choose from, including Magic, Hey!Wire, Hey Boots, Eau Water, Neurotica and Oh No Won’t Do.

“I do enjoy playing Robinson Crusoe even though I’ve played like 100 times, just because it varies each time and depending on the crowd we can adapt it and improvise to an extent, and songs which were a bit less well known, such as Brain on a Slow Train, because I really liked the bass part of that,” says Will.

Even decades after they first started out, Cud has very dedicated fans who go so far as to plan their holidays around the band’s tours, according to Will.

“There’s a guy who goes by the name The Ledge, who has a special dispensation to come on stage during our song Robinson Crusoe and do his Bez-type dancing,” he says.

“And there’s a few that formed their own little Space Cudet group and they communicate and arrange to meet up. They even do their own little badges and T-shirts.”

Now there’s even a next generation of fans coming along to gigs with their parents.

“It’s not just the original fans who come along. It’s also their spouses and their kids now because they’ll come along and say, ‘Hey, this is who I was into when I was a student’,” says Will.

“Surprisingly, we do get quite a few young faces. In terms of how to describe us, we had success just before Britpop but somehow we weren’t really accepted into their scene because we were indie and had been around for quite a while. Our music is four-minute indie pop songs, but with a funky edge. We are very danceable and we do love to entertain. And so it should be a good moment to let yourself go and to enjoy it and smile. We dress up with dance around. We don’t look really kind of sombre on stage.”

Now the band is back together, they just have to fit the shows around their jobs.

“Touring basically revolves around Mike’s availability. Teachers can’t take days off. So, generally we ended up on tour in October half-term and we’ve tried to fit in a few dates in the summer holidays now because actually it’s quite nice going out in the summer.”

See Cud at The Portland Arms, July 25, with supporting act Yoke.

Visit https://theportlandarms.co.uk/wp/product/cud-25th-july-24/ for tickets.