I was in my late 20s, had been around the world (and I, I, I), recently returned to Edinburgh, had a sensible job, wore a suit, managed to turn up to the office five days a week, often for two weeks in a row, this music was clearly aimed at a younger audience. Or so I thought. In my mind I always had EMF down as a boy band, my only previous visual exposure being photos in the music press of them goofing about, wearing baggy surfer shorts, beanies and baseball caps perched sideways on their heads. At 9pm on 26th April 1992, Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall didn’t know what was about to hit it.

EMF were a boy band, in the sense that, when the band started, four of the five of them were boys in their teens. The fifth, Ian Dench - a songwriter and musically trained guitarist - was a bit older, he was in fact, and obviously still is, ages with me. But they weren’t a boy band as in, manufactured, put together like Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, Take That, Stray Kids. The other four had spent some time creating their own alternative scene in England’s West Country. Singer James Atkin kept bugging Dench “You should come to the Forest of Dean. We’ve got this great band. We wear Afghan coats and play death metal.” The trouble was that Afghans and death metal plus a name - EMF (an abbreviation of Epsom Mad Funkers, keep up at the back) - was all they had, they didn’t have any actual songs.

From that unpromising and somewhat limited set of raw materials, they recorded a debut single, Unbelievable. A giddy mix of dance, rock, techno, infectious samples, white boy rap, and police sirens, all set to a lazy bass line. Like a bomb going off in a musical instrument shop, it was simultaneously like everything you’d heard before and nothing you’d heard before. Record labels fell over each other to try to sign the band with EMI winning. The single was a massive worldwide success, selling half a million copies in the States alone and was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award. (Ian Dench would later top that in 2008 by winning an Ivor Novello Award for Beautiful Liar which he wrote for Beyoncé and Shakira.)

And they toured like their lives depended on it, over 100 gigs in 1991. James Atkin: “It was a rollercoaster ride and before we knew it, we were being whisked off to America to tour the country which was incredible experience especially at such a young age. For guys our age, five best friends, touring America, partying all night, sleeping on the bus and getting up in a new town just to do it all again, for six weeks at a time, was surreal and memories you never forget.”

After a hiatus of a quarter of a century the band released a new album in 2022 and another last year, the latter in particular a return to a (somewhat mellower) form. They’re on the road again too, Australia in August and a six-date tour of the UK with perennial pranksters Jesus Jones.

But back to that night at the Queens Hall. It was bedlam, or as much bedlam as you can get on a Sunday evening in the old Hope Park Chapel. Everything you want from a concert, a wall of sound, constant flashing lights, all five of them throwing shapes, the crowd going ape-shit, and all over-&-done with inside an hour. Catching the audience off-guard, by throwing Unbelievable in three or four songs in was a nice theatrical touch. Did they play it a second time as an encore? It’s possible, but I can’t remember.

33 years on, thinking of that night still brings a smile to my face, even if only to recall the look of utter horror on the face of the Queens Hall manager as he saw members of the support band Silverfish throw themselves off the balcony into the crowd below during EMF’s set. In years to come I saw Blur, Suede and Pulp, the cream of Britpop at the Queens Hall but none of them could hold a candle to the lads from Forest of Dean that night in April 1992. From start to finish it was a riot of fun.

Here’s them performing live on Channel 4’s The Word, audience slightly subdued and sadly no sign of Julian Clary who appeared on the show earlier the same evening, but you get the general idea …

Next month, in the band’s hometown of Cinderford, a blue plaque in recognition of EMF’s Unbelievable achievements is to be unveiled. The ceremony takes place on 18th March at 11:30 in Cinderford Town Centre “followed by a pint or 2 in the Golden Lion!” Thoroughly deserved.

The things, you say
Your purple prose just gives you away
The things, you say
You're unbelievable

Epsom Mad Funkers

Beat Surrender

The Sense of No Ending