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The boys are back in town
By John McGurk
Sunday Life
12 March 2006

HE may be getting used to a life less ordinary in 2006. And now it's back to a remarkably revitalised 'day job' this week for Celebrity Big Brother housemate Preston.

The frontman of indie comeback kids Ordinary Boys returns to Belfast for a St Patrick's Night shindig at the Mandela Hall.

The band are enjoying a massive surge of success on the back of Preston's reality TV trip.

Their second album, Brassbound, has done brisk business in the Top 10 after initially stiffing at a lowly No 31 last August. Re-released single Boys Will Be Boys has provided the band with their biggest hit to date, hurtling back up the charts to No 3 fuelled by an influx of teen TV fans devoted to the new 'pin-up' Preston phenomenon.

But attributing the band's success solely to Preston's newfound celebrity would be ill advised.

After being formed in 2002, Morrissey was soon championing their cause, and not just because they took their name from one of his songs.

The Moz connection continued in 2004 with Smiths producer Stephen Street coming on board for the Ordinary Boys' debut album, Over The Counter Culture.

That first ska-tinged Britpop set was strongly influenced by The Jam, The Smiths and The Specials. Although blatantly derivative, it clocked up an impressive 100,000 sales.

But some critics were concerned with the Worthing quartet's lack of originality.

Then, when the band released follow-up album Brassbound last year, those fears seemed confirmed with its heavy, stylistic reliance upon The Clash and Madness.

But there's no denying that Brassbound's jubilant, new wave reggae sound will create a fantastic live atmosphere when they hit Ulster this week.

Rewind to just a few months and Ordinary Boys' future was precarious, to say the least.

But now, after being in the eye of the Big Brother media storm, complete with Preston's tabloid hogging romance with show winner Chantelle, Ordinary Boys are an extraordinary success story.