Tonight is probably one of the more anticipated gigs I’ve been to recently given what I’ve heard about Twin Atlantic live and what I’ve previously seen of Canterbury. The Night ‘n’ Day is also a decent ‘small’ venue in Manchester. Before them though Airship take the stage. Unfortunately I’m late arriving and just miss their short set. Further research shows though that this atmospheric, indie type band are causing a bit of a local stir amongst the ‘XFM’ type crowd in Manchester and maybe one to keep an eye out for on future tours.
Canterbury soon follow. I’m quite interested to see how they go tonight having been impressed by them on their first headlining tour late last year. It’s been reasonably well documented prior to tonight’s show though that Mike, the lead singer, has been recently ill. The band exude the energy expected of the Power Pop genre that they represent. The crowd are however rather subdued throughout their set. If you look around you can partially understand why. It’s definitely a little different to what I perceive their target audience to be. This seems to get to Canterbury. Mike in particular gets reasonably vocal in his frustration. This is nice to see but it likely does them few favours. Evidence would argue Canterbury are one of those bands that really feed off their audiences and tonight their energy clearly outweighs that of the crowd. This is partially justified as Mike’s vocals are particularly off and the whole band sound below par. A little rusty.
This band still do have all the makings for headlining venues of this size with ‘Peace and Quiet’ and finisher ‘Friends? We’re More Like A Gang’ being highlights. New track Gloria also show signs that this band, both in the studio and live, are still maturing nicely. Album number 2 will be interesting to here. (3)
It’s immediately clear when Twin Atlantic take the stage after a pleasant ‘spoken word’ intro that these guys play their instruments about as hard as any other Alternative/Indie rock band I’ve seen in a long time. The opener ?You’re Turning Into John Wayne? goes down well and it’s a fair representation of how tonight is going to go as lead guitarist Sam breaks his first guitar string. They play a decent sized set tonight and it’s all done as if these guys are pumping out songs much harder than they sound. To be fair this is represented by the crowd who advertise such bands as ‘Tool’ and ‘Slayer‘ with the t-shirts, backed up by lots of head banging, a little bizarre. Twin Atlantic have the crowd in much more of a frenzy than Canterbury before them but for a Manchester crowd, Sam even gets in a bit of crowd surfing. It’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer effort and application on show this evening though and reminds me a little of ‘Hell Is For Heroes‘. Tracks from the EP ‘A Guidance From Colour’ as well as album ‘Vivarium’ both get exposure tonight. ‘I Cave In’ and ‘Human After All’ both go down well from their respective records.
I know this has been said before but it’s also charming to see a band really not ashamed to curb their accents in the vocal delivery and for me it adds a certain credibility to their live performance, making them stand out even further. Anyone who hasn’t seen this band yet and enjoys this type of music really should give Twin Atlantic a chance. (4)
Jamie