MUSIC | HISTORY
Three Singles of the Week and Still the Band Sunk Without a Trace
The forgotten heroes of 1992
Two years is a lifetime when you’re in a band. You’ve watched your peers all ride a wave to pop stardom. You’ve born witness to less talented folks such as Menswear become the ‘Next Big Thing’. Your inner rage thrums with vengeance for all those that have held you back. Two years since you burst on the scene with such promise and here you are, playing some crappy club in Brussels.
Is Brussels the place where bands go to die? On stage, the bassist Stephen ‘Wil’ Williams shrugs as lead guitarist Robert Dillam throws yet another hissy-fit. He’s not happy, again. Something about the lights, or the sounds or maybe it’s the crowd numbers that’s making him angry. Five people half bored sitting at an empty bar is enough to make anyone lose their rag. As frontman Piotr Fijalkowski mocks Dillam in a bravado show of pity, he turns back to the stage and announces the band's break-up.
They all promptly leave the stage and never speak to each other again.
What I love the most about revisiting old times and reminiscing about bands I used to watch, is finding out what happened to them. How did talented people who were on the cusp of greatness blow it so bad? It’s often the small decisions and the wrong side of luck that detours a band from superstardom.
One such case was Manchester outfit Adorable.
They had everything. A killer single. An enigmatic frontman. A moody guitarist. And a record label, Creation, that was legendary for housing some of the greatest indie bands of all time. Formerly the Candy Thieves, they already had one guitarist quit due to lack of success. Their best song, ‘Homeboy’ was a leftover remnant from those early days. I guess you could say they had already peaked.
The band made their debut on the night the first Gulf War kicked off. Another warning sign of how it was all to go horribly wrong. It was their first gig as Adorable. A record was soon to follow but despite positive reviews, somehow it was never released. It did catch the attention of Creation Records.
Finally, they had momentum. Creation was home to many legendary bands such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride, Slowdive, Saint Etienne, Teenage Fanclub, The House of Love, and of course, Oasis. With that kind of roster, how could you not feel confident? Adorable went on tour supporting Curve. Now there’s another awesome band who had style and chic and boasted a female lead, Toni Halliday, who could make grown men cry. Like most pubescent teens, I was smitten with Toni and her cheekbones. This was who Garbage modeled themselves on. She was smoking hot and every teenage boy's wet dream. And the music, fuck, it was moody, dark, and heavy. So good!
Back at Adorable HQ, single after single went into the top five of the Indie Charts. Their album, Against Perfection, was to be number 42 in Pitchfork’s list of “The 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time”. A grand tour was planned of the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan. The album was riding high in the domestic charts at 70. Adorable was on its way.
There was little time to work on their 2nd album. The follow-up didn’t have the same energy. There was no spark. The band felt like they were going through the numbers and wanted a quick release. The tour was now dragging on with relations strained. At Creation, they couldn’t understand why the band was being so difficult. Relations became strained both within the record label and the band. Two years later, at the height of Britpop, Adorable split up, somewhere, on a stage, in a crappy club, in Brussels, Belgium.
Would I be deemed a success if I was in a band and years later my Wikipedia entry said, “the former lead singer now works as a graphic designer in New Zealand?” It always fascinates me to read what became of the talented. How the mundane existence of everyday living finally catches up with them. Guitarist Dillam became a teacher of computer networking. Hardly sounds exotic. Bassist Williams works at a university as Director of the International Office. The drummer also went into teaching as is now the head of a comprehensive school. Is that where all washed-up rockers end? Teaching the youth and hiding their ambitions and previous careers?
Only lead singer Fijalkowski attempted to continue. He shortened his name to Fij and teamed up with the former House of Love guitarist. They became Polak and promptly did fuck-all.
Like most 90s bands, they reformed for a couple of gigs in 2019 before returning back to the day jobs.
Yet again, there go another one of life’s moments, where Adorable was the biggest band in the world and I was their ‘Homeboy’.