Bros: After the Screaming Stops

Dir: Joe Pearlman, David Soutar

2018

*****

I’m not going to lie, as a young boy growing up in London during the 1980s I listened to Bros and I bought their album. I remember clearly going into Woolworth one Saturday with some birthday money thinking that I should probably start listening to music. I didn’t know anything about music other than my mum liked Boney M and my dad listened to Pink Floyd. I bought New Kids on the Block, Carter USM, Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, Michael Jackson’s Bad and Push by Bros. I listened to all five albums in a loop and I knew every lyric in no time. It became uncool to like New Kids on the Block and Bros pretty quickly and still to this day when people ask what my first album was I say either Carter USM or Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. Carter USM remain one of my favorite bands of all time but I have little interest in the others. I’m not sure I could get through a whole album now of any of them, or at least that what I thought before watching 2018’s incredible music documentary Bros: After the Screaming Stops. There is so much to love about this film but the first thing that struck me was just how good the music has aged. I always used to look back at it as ‘boy band’ music but actually it is quality pop and should come under the banner of ‘80s classics’. Their fame was short lived but the flame burned bright for those few years. I remember seeing the crowds of girls who would hand around outside their house 24 hours a day, I believe they were called Brossettes and they all tied Grolsch bottle caps to their shoes. It’s weird to look back and realise that they were only a band for such a short while. I knew Luke Goss had an acting career but I wasn’t sure what had happened to Matt and indeed Craig. The documentary totally ignores the fact that poor old Craig even existed but it’s okay though, he has done very well for himself in the music management game, this film is about the brothers - as the band was. Back in the day most people – including the hardcore fans – probably had no idea why the band split because all we had to rely on were silly teen music magazines (Look In) and the British tabloids (toilet paper). I thought Craig was sacked for being boring of example, but after a bit of research he actually left because he was suffering from ME and couldn’t walk for 6 months. There was a television interview and everything but everyone I know thought he was booted. I didn’t know that it was Luke who called it a day after becoming tired of living in his brother’s shadow (as he saw it) and I was even more surprised to learn that it was actually him that played the drums live. Most of this info is easy to find and actually the documentary isn’t about any of that, it is about the reunion gigs that the two brothers organised in 2017 – a whole twenty-eight years after their last show. Matt has been selling out regular Las Vegas shows for years and Luke has been working hard in his acting career, so both brothers are used to still performing. Performing together as Bros though seems to be their biggest challenge to date. I’d heard that the documentary was funny in a Spinal Tap sort of way but I had no idea just how emotional it was. It is first and foremost one the funniest films I have ever seen, it isn’t intentional but the director and producers must have realised they’d struck gold as soon as they got started. The Goss twins are not idiots though, they say funny things but they’re about as likable as any two people could ever be. The truth is that they’ve come through the very worst that stardom and celebrity can throw at you. They were always a band, first and foremost, in it for the music before anything else. They had success at such an early age, to go from that to being hated in such a short space of time is horrible. They were ripped to pieces by the media for no real reason other than the British press is scum. It made them leave their beloved London, clearly one of the toughest times of their lives. They lost their only sister in a car accident during the height of their success but carried on knowing how much was invested in them. They were used and disposed of, the age old story of young fame. I have loads of sympathy for them and they seem to have got themselves out of a painful time but the scars are still very clear to see. The title ‘After the screaming stops’ comes from an interview with the late Terry Wogan who was the UK’s most popular talk show host during the late 80s. He was supportive of the group but asked them back in 1989 what they think they’ll do once it is all over - ‘After the screaming stops’. The footage shows two young men unsure of the answer and fast forwards to 2018 where they speak about how tough it has been. It’s quite powerful. Some of the quotes are amazing, modern classics (including such lines as: ““The letters H.O.M.E. are so important because they personify the word home.”; “I made a conscious decision because of Stevie Wonder not to be superstitious.”; “If there was ever 15 one way streets and one solitary two way street where me and my brother got to meet in the middle – you helped [us] find that one street. We’ve met in the middle. Two worlds definitely collided. When two worlds collide, two things happen: Destruction or the genesis of new beginnings, and you created water on a new planet, mate.”), but there is so much heart and raw emotion here that it is impossible not to love the brothers. It’s been a while – or maybe even never – that I’ve laughed hard and also nearly cried with sadness during a documentary. I never would have thought it would be a Bros documentary that would be the one to manage it. I loved every second of it.