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Talking Manchester City With… The Rainband

Talking Manchester City With... The Rainband
The Rainband... Played at the Etihad

Manchester rockers The Rainband have just embarked on a joint-headline UK tour with The Lines (dates here) and they’ve devised a rather novel way of deciding who gets to headline each night. Football Burp caught up with their Manchester City-supporting front man Martin Finnigan just before last night’s opening leg of the tour at London’s 100 Club – but first though, check them in action…

Just heard about your coin-toss defeat. Commiserations.

Yeah, it was a game of two halves, really – I went for tails, never fails, and the big man from The Lines went for heads. So we’re supporting The Lines tonight, but it’s not a bad band to support, to be fair. It’s nice to see the Midlands amount to something, because it’s certainly not football!

Have your nerves settled back down from Monday night yet?

Monday night was mad, because the single we’ve got coming out on June 18th [their motorbike legend Marco Simoncelli tribute song “Rise Again”] was played at the Etihad twenty minutes before kick-off. We’ve had quite a lot of backing from Manchester City, to be honest. That was amazing in itself, and the derby itself was possibly the biggest game of football that Manchester’s ever seen, so to come out on top of that was something else.  I don’t think it’s over yet – the way Newcastle United performed last night reminded everybody that it’s not over, but as long as we can somehow beat them at their place then I think we’re home and dry. To be fair, we trudged off at the Emirates eight points behind, and that was only a few games ago.

Were you there on Monday?

Yeah, I was there with Dags [Paul Daggatt], our bass player who goes home and away band commitments permitting, and I’m there most home games. We’ve followed them from the Second Division – my first away game was York City away when we got beat 2-1, so we’ve seen the lows and now we’re coming back on a high. As a City fan you keep pinching yourself, and that’s why after Arsenal, when it was all over, there was no backlash from our fans.

Did you get to meet Diego Maradona or Liam Gallagher?

No, I didn’t get to meet either of the Hands of God, unfortunately! But we were sort of to the left of where Liam Gallagher was, and Maradona was further down to the right. It’s great to have those sorts of characters at a game like that, because it doesn’t get any bigger than that.

Carlos Tevez has come out saying he’d like to stay. Is it hard to forgive and forget?

Me and Steve [Irlam, drummer] went to the Brit Awards the night he apparently apologised, and I heard before so I told Noel Gallagher when I was introduced to him by the lads from Elbow – he said, “Do you accept his apology?” and I said, “To be honest with you, if he wins the league for City then I’ll take that as an apology all day long.” At the end of the day, everyone falls out with their boss. Yeah, it was selfish to go away and no-one knew what was going on, and I think City did a massive service to football there because player power was at its peak, although I suppose Roberto Mancini did have the financial power behind him to say, “You’re under contract, so apologise or you can play in the reserves if you want to.”

To be fair, every time I’ve seen Carlos Tevez cross the white line he’s been outstanding, never looked as though he had issues on the field. Off the field, I don’t necessarily believe that it’s him that’s the perpetrator – it could be the other side to some extent – but he’s done great since he’s come back in and you can never doubt that he gives 100%. Him and Sergio Aguero up front are pretty phenomenal so that’s exciting, and the players have welcomed him back as well. I know some people who know a couple of the players and they said it wasn’t really an issue, wasn’t as though he’d let them down but it was an issue with the manager that’s been cleared up.

Martin Finnigan, thank you.

“Rise Again” will be released on June 18th. For more information, please visit therainband.co.uk