OF ALL the bands that spewed out of the ecstasy-fuelled 'Madchester' music explosion, Salford's Happy Mondays were by far the most chaotic and entertaining.
Fronted by singer Shaun Ryder and dancer Bez, the Factory Records-signed group's carefully cultivated image was of druggy petty criminals turned druggy pop stars - loveable rogues made 'double double good' who were just as much a gang as a band.
Early single 24-hour Party People was a zeitgeist-tapping anthem in Manchester and beyond, while 1988's Martin Hannettproduced album Bummed put them on the map as funky, psychedelic scallys.
The Mondays' next LP, 1990's Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osbourne-produced Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches, featured some of their best songs to date - Step On, Kinky Afro, God's Cop, Loose Fit.
Its danceable sound proved to be the band's big breakthrough: international success and all sorts of drink and drug-fuelled bad behaviour beckoned.
By the time the disastrous album sessions for 1992's ill-received Yes Please! (produced by Talking Heads duo Chris and Tina Weymouth) were occurring between crack binges in Jamaica, the writing was well and truly on the wall for an increasingly unhappy Happy Mondays. The band split the following year.
Dynamic duo Ryder and Bez subsequently made a triumphant return to pop stardom with Black Grape, hitting number one with their debut album It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah in 1995 and enjoying five top 20 singles before disbanding in 1998.
The inseparable pair have since tasted reality TV stardom on I'm A Celebrity... and Celebrity Big Brother; Bez emerged victorious from the Big Brother house, while Ryder was a very popular runner-up in the jungle.
Although the current Happy Mondays reunion is actually the third since their original split, it's the first to feature their 'classic' Pills 'n' Thrills line-up of Ryder, Bez, Paul Ryder, Gaz Whelan, Mark Day, Paul Davis and Rowetta.
As such, Sunday night's gig at The Feile Marquee promises to be a full-strength dose of Madchester mania - or does it?
"In Belfast, I think for the first half of the show we're gonna do all N-Dubz covers, followed by the two Chipmunk albums in their entirety," Shaun muses mischievously.
"No, it's gonna be 'the greatest hits' or whatever you want to call them. I think we touch on each album."
Indeed, along with the crowdpleasing likes of Step On, Kinky Afro, 24-Hour Party People and Hallelujah, it seems even the much derided Yes Please! LP (memorably given a two-word review by NME: "No thanks") gets a look-in.
"We do Cowboy Dave, because it's the only one I like," reveals Shaun. "It was inspired by a lad in a Factory band (Dave Rowbotham of Durutti Column) who got murdered by his prostitute girlfriend.
"Everybody at Factory got questioned by the police over it, so obviously it had to be turned into a song.
"I hated the album and I especially hated touring it at the time - but nowadays I actually like Cowboy Dave and a couple of other tracks on it."
This kind of positive re-evaluation is in keeping with the sudden outbreak of peace in the Happy Mondays camp.
Older, wiser and less chemically-assisted, the band are finally enjoying playing together, as Shaun (50) explains.
"It's a lot easier nowadays," enthuses the father-of-six. "We're not off our nuts anymore, so we actually get to enjoy it more this time around.
"Not only can we remember what we're playing, we can remember the shows afterwards too - and they sound good. I wouldn't say it if it weren't true.
"It's just a breeze, it really is. When we split up we were still young angry men - and being young, there's lots of aggro and bull**** that goes with that. Now we're just old and docile men."
Although there are tentative plans for a new Happy Mondays record, for the moment the band are concentrating on touring: their next jaunt will be a run of British dates this winter to mark the 25th anniversary of Bummed.
As well as releasing his second solo album later in the year, Shaun Ryder will soon be back on our television screens too: first in a new series for the History Channel, Shaun Ryder On UFOs ("Some of the things I saw in Chile are mental. You'll have to watch it to find out what they are though," he enthuses) and eventually in a ITV adaptation of his best-selling 2011 autobiography, Twisting My Melon.
"We're just about to start casting that at the moment," he reveals.
"It's going to be surreal choosing someone to play the young me."
? Happy Mondays, with The Charlatans, Sunday August 4, Feile Marquee, Falls Park, Belfast. Tickets from Feilebelfast.com.