The Char laddie

Lifestyles don’t come any more jet-set these days than Tim Burgess’. Having played Brazil, Japan, Switzerland and Spain in quick succession, the Charlatans’ lead singer is about to catch what he reckons is his twelfth transatlantic flight of the year.

“Yeah, I’m just going back to my girl,” he says referring to his missus and reason for living in Los Angeles, Michelle. “The travelling’s a pain at times, but that’s the price you pay for having two loves in your life. My wife’s really, really important to me but so’s The Charlatans. In different ways, though!”

His four strapping bandmates will be delighted to hear it. Along with their foreign sojourns, The Charlatans have notched up no fewer than five outdoor UK appearances this summer including a headlining spot at the reborn Isle of Wight Festival.

“It was only the second festival they’d done since Bob Dylan in 1969 so, yeah, it was quite an honour,” Burgess enthuses. “Normally I don’t get nervous before a gig, but when the footsteps you’re following in are as big as those it’s impossible to stay calm. The crowd was a bit disappointing – 18,000 instead of the hoped for 30,000 – but we played really, really well and got a good reaction. I’ve a bootleg of Dylan’s performance which I’ve watched a million times, so to actually be there, standing in the same spot as him, was mindblowing.”

As was having Robert Plant as one of their supports.

“Technically, yeah, he was on before us but Robert Plant doesn’t play second fiddle to anybody. I’m really upset that Primal Scream nobbled him for their record before we could get him to play on ours!”

Were there any ’60s survivors there?

“Yeah, that bloke who sets his head on fire, Arthur Brown. The ‘Crazy’ part of his name is totally justified!”

The Isle of Wight applause still ringing in their ears, it was off to Finsbury Park where the Charlies gave Oasis a serious run for their backstage rider.

“It was a bit weird,” Tim confides. “Of all the crowds we’ve played to, theirs is the most partisan and hard to keep on side. Friday night was good, Saturday night we were brilliant and Sunday I didn’t get into at all.”

Talking of brilliant, I’m told by my spies that The Charlatans tore Glastonbury apart.

“Yeah, we did okay. The first festival I ever went to was Glastonbury in ’86 or ’87 when New Order were on. I told work that my granny had died or something and drove down in a beat-up Vauxhall Cavalier.”

Bearing in mind that the statute of limitations has passed, did he throw mud and/or bottles of pee at anybody?

“Err… no! I paid in as well.”

Ooh, get Captain Virtuous! What about audiences chucking things at him?

“We had a pig’s head land on stage once,” he says matter-of-factly. “John Brookes threw up.”

Burgess’ all-time fave festival experience?

“A place in California called The John Anderson Ford Amphitheater. It was really beautiful and so out-of-the-way that there were deer running around backstage! Tellin’ Stories had just come out and, I dunno, everything clicked.”

Finally, what can fans expect to hear at Slane?

“Some songs off Wonderland, definitely. I think we’ll play some older stuff as well like ‘Weirdo’ and ‘The Only One I Know’. Part of you says, ‘You’re at a festival, you’ve got to get people into you by playing your hits’, but at the same time I want to do something forward-looking. So maybe we’ll do a balance.”