Magazine - 'These gigs are a cherry on a cake'

The one-time "most important man in pop" made a quietly triumphant comeback last week. Howard Devoto's Magazine, missing since 1981, were the most uncategorisable band of the post-punk years, a mixture of giddy keyboard textures, classic rock excitement and literate alienation. Their nearest thing to a hit, 1978's debut single "Shot By Both Sides", typically stalled at no. 41, after Devoto graced Top of the Pops standing stock-still and blank faced.

He cuts a radically different figure on stage now. The forbiddingly intellectual man keyboardist Dave Formula saw on TV playing strange music you could "see through the bones of", and couldn't wait to join, is bald, jovial, and wearing absurd shorts. The weight of "importance" has lifted.

Pete Shelley, co-founder of Devoto's first band Buzzcocks, isn't surprised. "Howard's daft as a brush. When we did the two-note guitar solo for [Buzzcocks classic] 'Boredom', we couldn't play it again for another 15 minutes, because we were falling about laughing. It was so silly, to be able to get away with that."

Devoto's importance back then, though, was swift and profound. He helped trigger the Manchester scene by booking the Sex Pistols for two gigs at the city's Lower Free Trade Hall. By the second, he was on the bill in Buzzcocks. He left the band, in effect resigning from punk, before their first EP, Spiral Scratch, was even out. Shelley casually gave Devoto the riff that launched "Shot By Both Sides", and Magazine. In the shows last week, Devoto sat on the stage's lip to sing it, so he could leap up as that giant riff thundered in, and sing again of running to "the outside of everything". In 2009, Devoto's no longer alone, singing his hymn to total individuality. Full houses sing and dance along each night.

Though Magazine never recovered commercially from the narrow chart failure of "Shot By Both Sides", there would be greater music – "A Song From Under The Floorboards", a Dostoevsky novel packed into a pop song, is a highlight of these shows. But by 1981, they were gone. "My willpower to hold the band together had ebbed away," Devoto says. "I'd had enough of the creative struggle. I'd just had enough. Had enough, had enough. That's it."

For this reunion, much had changed. "The material has stood the test of time. We're not going out with new songs, wondering how people are going to take it. And the strain of being financially reliant on Magazine has gone. These gigs are a cherry on a cake, or two."

The reunion line-up, with drummer John Doyle, bassist Barry Adamson and keyboardist Dave Formula (credited also with making the reunion tour happen) is the generally acknowledged classic incarnation of the band, bar one member. The man missing is guitarist John McGeoch, who died in 2004.

"John was one hell of a guitarist, and more," Devoto says. "A song like 'Motorcade' is blistered with ideas. It's a huge shame John's no longer with us. [Reunion guitarist] Noko basically plays his parts. We were trying to create timeless-sounding records. And from what people have been kind enough to say, I may not have been so wide of the mark, all those years ago. So we don't need to tamper. There are no radical rearrangements."

After an initial encore including a cover of Sly & The Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", the fans' foot-stomping suggests a crowd not wanting to let them slip away again. It brings the band back to the stage. There is a sense at the gigs of celebrating a victory that's been won in their absence. The tension of the old struggle for recognition has ebbed away. Devoto likes it that way.

"Your time eventually comes around again, on the waltzes, the roundabouts. And when it comes, you've gotta jump on. We wanted to remind people what we did then. And what we can do now. I don't have the same ambition. But I have greater capacity for happiness. I don't know if we'll do more gigs. We just wanted to clearly feel these. And then, we'll see."