Gig Review: The Twilight Sad, The Phoenix, Manchester, 10th September 2007
It’s been a fairly barren summer for The Indie Credential as far as gigs (and posts) are concerned. This was our first gig since early July, not counting the disappointing D:Percussion and Leeds Festivals, and neither of us were particularly keen to re-enter the fray.
Fortunately, it was a pretty excellent night. We missed openers Gintis, which was a shame as Chris from Hey! Manchester was quite enthusiastic about them after the gig. If we’d shown the same sort of enthusiasm in getting ourselves off our arses and out of the house then maybe we’d have got down there in time. Glaswegian trio Frightened Rabbit were up next and were every bit as good as I hoped they might be having spent a while getting acquainted with their gritty Scottish indie before the gig. With guitars that scratched and soared in equal measure and a drummer who seemed utterly possessed by the music, the band won over the small crowd, their set growing in intensity and culminating in a lengthy lo-fi epic that was the highlight of the set. Their Sings The Greys album is being re-released on Fat Cat next month and will be well worth stumping up a tenner for.
What struck me about The Twilight Sad was that there were only four of them and only one guitarist, yet they managed to replicate the soaring textures of their Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters debut, despite the rather wimpy sound system in The Phoenix. It was another intense performance, as you might expect if you’ve heard the album, and singer James Graham spent much of the gig hunched over his mic, facing the guitarist rather than the audience. The atmosphere was diminished, I felt, by the venue’s air conditioning, which did it’s job in keeping us all sweat free, but who wants to kept at room temperature at a gig? Gigs like this are all about band and audience getting themselves into a sweaty mess. In the end it was over all to quickly – I think they only played six songs including a truly marvellous “that summer, at home I had become the invisible boy” – but it was still enough to bring us out of our gig-related torpor, for one night at least.
Frightened Rabbit – Go Go Girls
The Twilight Sad – that summer, at home I had become the invisible boy
File under Gig Reviews,mp3,Reviews.