✿ AVAILABLE ON BLURAY BY THE BFI & HEAVENLY FILMS ✿ RELEASED ON JUNE 19TH, 2023 ✿
It’s strange to think that a music promo could end up being one of the defining moments in the history of an independent record label, but that’s exactly what Weekender was. Acclaimed on its release on Heavenly in 1992, Weekender was the zenith of Flowered Up’s short, meteoric career – and their untimely swan song, an twelve minute single that was accompanied by a short film. In the years after its release, passed around on VHS tapes in a pre-internet era, the film’s notoriety grew and it’s influence seeped into popular culture. Wiz’s film was a direct inspiration on Danny Boyle’s adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, the movie that shaped much of how club culture has been portrayed on screen ever since. Both the film and the track are a hell of a legacy for a band that flamed and burnt out way too early.
Thanks to Heavenly Films’ Martin Kelly, Weekender is being issued on BluRay for the first time, along with I Am Weekender – a seventy minute long documentary directed by Chloé Raunet about the making of the film and the impact it has had since it was first shown. The film features contributions from an incredible line up of talking heads, including the surviving members of the band, the film’s cast, Irvine Welsh, Jeremy Deller, Shaun Ryder, Roisin Murphy, Lynne Ramsey, Heavenly’s Jeff Barrett and many more. It’s essential viewing, offering a unique insight into the heart of acid house and the messy consequences of a 24-7 lifestyle.
The BluRay features a digitally remastered version of the original film, I Am Weekender, Nish (Wiz’s first b&w super 8 film shot at a Boys Own party in ’89), Bocca Junior’s Raise (Wiz’s first promo video) and the original videos for Flowered Up singles It’s On, Phobia and Take It.
Words: Robin Turner, March 2023
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One of the chapter highlights of Robin Turner’s Heavenly book, was ‘HVN16 Weekender Flowered Up.’
In the chapter, Flowered Up manager Des Penney recalls the highs and lows of the group’s brief but incandescent existence. You can read it in full on The Quietus website.