Gig Review: Battle, Manchester Night & Day, 5th March 2006

Battle at the Night & DayOn Sunday night we headed back to the good old Night & Day to see our third gig of a busy weekend. We saw Battle at the same venue about six months ago and they were excellent, but I hadn’t really heard much of them in the interim so was interested to see how they had progressed.

First up, well, second up as we missed the first band, were The OnOffs, the first band I’ve seen to bear a passing resemblence to the Arctic Monkeys, their singer looking like a cross between Alex Turner and snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan. They are a three-piece and sound very much like (This Is The) Modern World-era Jam. This may have been The Jam’s most fallow period artistically but The OnOffs put in an entertaining set nonetheless and impress with their extremely accomplished musicianship, the aforementioned singer/guitarist playing like Weller at his peak, even nicking his “News Of The World” guitar solo in homage.

Not much seems to have changed in the world of Battle, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as they’ve yet to put out a full length and have only a couple of singles to their name. Their audience has grown – there were at least twice as many people down as last time – and the band definitely sounded tighter and more focused than before. I felt familiar with much of the set, even though I’ve only seen them twice before, which is a good sign, means they’ve got catchy tunes. Debut single “Isobelle” is still a big crowd favourite, “Tendency” still sounds like “A Forest” by The Cure, “Demons” sounds like Bloc Party covering The Lightning Seeds. And they all still sound great. Singer Jason Bavanandan was as restless as ever, barely uttering a word between songs but giving everything during. The final two songs were the best of the night: “Takuya” saw Bavanandan and James Ellis trading choppy guitar licks before descending into a furious mantra; “Children” was the perfect closer to send everyone home happy, save for the lack of an encore.

Hopefully Battle can continue to develop at their own pace and won’t be thrust headfirst into the spotlight and be headlining the Apollo any day soon like Bloc Party and Editors before them. They’ve got an album due in the summer and, on this evidence, it could be every bit as good as the debuts of both those two bands.

7 Responses to “Gig Review: Battle, Manchester Night & Day, 5th March 2006”

  • JustHipper Says:

    It seems that one Bernard Butler is producing a single for The OnOffs. Hmm. He did do the first Libertines single. It could be a winner.

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