Live Review
Puppet Rebellion
Gullivers, Manchester
February 22 2014
Words: Dave Beech
Photos: Trust A Fox Photography
No matter what your musical persuasion, Manchester's music scene has always been an inexorable tour de force rivalled perhaps only by our country's capital. From pop to punk, hip-hop to indie, the bands which hail from the rainy city, signed or otherwise, offer Manc music fans a multiplicity of gigs and events on any given night across the city. Tonight for example sees acts like Prince, homegrown heroes Sonic Boom Six and Rudimental all vying for your attention at one venue or another. Opting for a smaller, though no less rowdy affair, we head down to Gullivers, a ramshackle spit'n'sawdust establishment in the city's Northern Quarter.
Fashionably late and sufficiently cocktailed, we arrive at Gulli's (as it's colloquially known) for the final few tracks of second act, The Wax Collection. With a sound derivative of the 60s pop stylings of The Beatles and The Kinks, flecked with moments of psychedelia, it's not a wholly original aesthetic, but the band put on a solid performance for the few tracks we catch and might be worth keeping an eye on.
Second on the bill are The Darlingtons. Having never seen them before, but hearing only good things about their sets, I've been looking forward to catching them live for some time now, and it goes without saying that they don't disappoint. Opening with forthcoming single 'Rotations' suggests a quiet confidence in the band; they don't need familiarity to grab your attention, their visceral live performances command it. Previous single 'Don't Give Me Hope' is a welcome early inclusion, as are 'Everything' and 'Watch Yourself' tracks taken from last years EP 'Who Says There's No Beach in Doncaster'. Their set, though every bit as encompassing as we'd hoped for, is over all too soon. What it does do, however, is solidify The Darlingtons as one of the best live bands around at the moment, and a band who I can't wait to catch live again.
Those who have seen Puppet Rebellion before can appreciate just how sweaty their gigs can get, and tonight is no exception. The venue's 'gig room' is reasonably narrow, and the crowd easily fill it, as such what was always going to be a sweaty becomes even more so, the air thick with the smell of beer, and expectancy as the band take to the stage.
Kicking off with 'Chemical Friends' is a sure-fire way to get a crowd moving, before dropping in a couple of numbers from there new EP. These new tracks ('Pirouette' and 'Cupboards Painted Red' respectively') gel in to their set effortlessly, going down just as well as more established tracks such as 'New Twenty'. One unexpected highlight comes in the form of 'Tame Imposter' a brand new track, unfamiliar to even those of us who got a glimpse of their new EP before tonight. Featuring an excellent opening riff and some solid drum work, it's bound to become a mainstay of Puppet Rebellion's live sets. The final track of the night falls to fan-favourite 'The Greatest Lie Ever Told' which sees the crowd losing themselves for one final time and the stage invasion that's slowly becoming synonymous with gigs at Gullivers.
There's a reason why tonight's EP launch sold out, and that's because time and time again, Puppet Rebellion prove themselves to be one the strongest and most confident bands in Manchester at the moment. If tonight's gig was anything to go by, then it won't long before the band swap the smaller stages of dive bars of Oldham Street for the larger venues of Oxford Road, and they couldn't be more deserving of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment