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Thu 27 Oct – Scroobius Pip

Great gig!
Wasn't really a massive fan before this show but i really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately the laptop they were using for backing tracks cut out mid-show, but Pip did some spoken word pieces instead of the planned songs and tbh that's what made it a great, unique show!

B.Dolan was brilliant too, i've listened to a few more of his tracks since this gig. Great artist.

Mon 17 Oct – City and Colour

Brilliant gig, especially 'Coming Home' and 'Sleeping Sickness'.
Dring one of the slower songs, Dallas Green asked everyone to put their phones down and stop the recording the gig just for that one song to 'experience gigs like we used to'. I thought this was really nice and you could almost feel everyone experiencing the music he was playing!
I know that doesn't really make much sense, but that's what it was like!
I liked that he played a lot of the songs as a full band, a la his latest record 'Little Hell', as oppose to the solo acoustic style of his first two albums.

Was top!

Nic x

Mon 10 Oct – Kids In Glass Houses, Save Your Breath, Francesqa, Blitz Kids

As i was not a massive fan of KiGH (I liked some songs, namely 'Gimme What I Want') I didn't really know what to expect from this gig.
Managed to catch the last few songs of the last support act, Francesqa, who i'd seen before. Unfortunately they had already played, or didn't play at all, the one song of theirs that i knew, 'Ghosts'.
KiGH came on and the lead singer to me looked like he could have been the identical twin of the guy from You Me At Six... Or at least they both shop at Topman and have the same hairdresser...
The stage was pretty cool, with the logo in glowing UV-pain on the backdrop. They dropped the lights and the used the UV-lights to illuminates the band, which was pretty cool.
The songs were OK. A lot of pop-y tunes in there with WOOOAHH's and OOOOOHH's in the choruses, which my friend Gary tells me are all the songs from the newest album, 'In Gold Blood'.
Incidentally, i actually really liked the song 'Gold Blood', which was completely different from the rest of their songs. A lot more rock-y.
The songs which definitely blew me away the most were 'Youngblood' and 'Saturday', which was played second-to-last. It was brilliant and i found myself singing along by the end of the track despite never having heard it before.

The only major slip-up that they made with the setlist is NOT putting 'Saturday' last. Everyone in the crowd assumed this would be the last song, and showed this by starting to leave the venue as the last chords of the song rang out. The band then began to play a sort of 2-minute screamo gig-outro, which was completely uncharacteristic and really didn't fit in with the rest of the gig! If they wanted to put this little experiment in the setlist, it should have been moved to somewhere other than the last song, in my opinion...

Despite this, it was a lot of fun!

The singer seemed genuinely thankful for the reaction he received, rather than the standard 'Thanks, Manchester, you've been great!' and i left the venue (after the ACTUAL last song...) thinking 'That was pretty good!'

I've definitely listened to the album 'Dirt' a lot more recently. The gig made me realise how good the songs actually were!

I'd probably go and see this band again.

Nic.

Thursday 22nd September 2011 – The Wonder Years, Valencia, Such Gold - Manchester Academy

Me and my mate Gaz arrived apart half way through the Valencia set (Unfortunately we missed Such Gold, shame!) and stood near the back of the venue. Valencia were really good, getting the crowd involved and even bringing Soupy from The Wonder Years on during the last song 'The Space Between' to sing with them. Great performance that made me listen to more of the band when i got home after the event!

The Wonder Years were amazing. At the point of me seeing them on this tour, they had been on tour for about 250 days over the past year, but everyone on the stage was brilliant and loving the reaction they got from such an energetic crowd. I love going to punk gigs like that, because you get the same energy as the heavier shows, but everyone is really friendly and looking out for each other in the pit. No one's a douche.

Soupy was pretty funny. Following 'Woke Up Older' (In which the chorus lyrics are "You left the room receded like my hairline."), he says: "Yeah, some other guy must have written the lyrics to that song. Definitely not me..."

The majority of songs they played were of course from 'Upsides' and 'Suburbia', but they did play a couple of earlier songs like 'Keystone State Dude-Core' and 'You're Not Salinger. Get over it.', which were awesome.
The last song of the Encore, 'All My Friends Are In Bar Bands', ended with the entire band jumping into the crowd, including the guys from the support bands!

Amazing atmosphere from both the lively crowd and the brilliant bands. A gig that revived my hope in and love for fun and energetic gigs.

Definitely one of my favourite gigs.




Here is the Setlist (i know this is the Birmingham one, but the Manchester date was the same sat): http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-wonder-years/2011/o2-academy-3-birmingham-england-2bd0184a.html

Fri 15 Jul – Man Overboard

This was the first small-ish underground-ish Punk gig i ever went to, and it was brilliant!
I'd say there were about 30 people in the crowd, and everyone knew the words to every song. It was obvious that everyone there was part of a solid Manchester fanbase that had formed for this band on this side of the Atlantic.

The one part of the gig that stands out for me is the last song, 'Love Your Friends, Die Laughing'. The singer, Zac, managed to sing the first line of the song ("Well the night gets old, so i'm back again...") before everyone rushed the stage and started rocking out up there with the band for the rest of the tune, all singing at the top of their voices, no mics required.

The way the band were cracking jokes, asking people if they had any weed, and generally just having a laugh with the fans reminded me of early Blink-182 gigs, which were basically stand-up comedy routines filled with punk songs!

Loved the atmosphere. Felt like everyone was in this damn thing together man!