Liverpool bands plot Wilson tribute

Liverpool is set to pay tribute to Tony Wilson - who was, after all, their local newsreader too - with a tribute gig that might include The Farm, Pete Wylie, the Bunnymen and... oh, you can probably write this list yourself.

The bands have been paying their tributes:

Peter Hooton, from The Farm, told the ECHO: “We had wanted to do something when he was alive to show how much he was appreciated. It was because after John Peel died there was a great outpouring of grief and tributes which he obviously never got to see. It was all banter with Tony, it wasn’t vitriolic. He loved football and music.

“We played at the Hacienda with the Happy Mondays and were always skitting him in the press about how well dressed he was.

“I’m pretty gutted. He’ll be sadly missed.”

More tributes were today paid from people on the Liverpool music scene including singer Ian McNabb. He said: “I remember he asked me to play at In The City when Liverpool hosted it some years back and he did a wonderful speech about Liverpool music and the so-called rivalry between the two great north-western cities.

“He loved music, pure and simple, which made him one of us.”

Singer Pete Wylie said: “When you look around at what’s happening now with the Capital of Culture, you realise Liverpool needs its own Tony Wilson, a man who dedicated his life to promoting the arts in a city he loved.”

Extra points, of course, to Mr. Wylie for managing to find room in a tribute to a deceased Mancunian to have a pop at Liverpool City Council.