Live review: NME Awards Tour 2016 with Austin, Texas 06/02/2016.
- Simon Harwood
- Feb 6, 2016
- 6 min read
For a lot of fans, the long awaited return of none other than the Indie super-group, Bloc Party had finally paid off, after the band’s disputes with founding members, the band have returned with new album ‘HYMNS’, and are to grace the stages for this year’s NME Awards Tour. To follow shortly behind them is a diverse choice of artists; Drenge, Rat Boy and Bugzy Malone and I had the pleasure of getting my hands dirty with all the turmoil at the Manchester Academy.
Standing in the queue, miserable, with the flu, whilst being rained on, I briefly peered past my dribbling nose to notice how the crowd weren’t fit to any kind of stereotype. Usually when passing a venue as it’s about to open gates to fans, one can tell what kind of artist is performing just by studying the shivering teens who wait in the vast queues, on this night however, I could not. Girls, guys, old’ns, young’ns, dresses, hoodies and the occasional obscure band tee-shirt and even more crashed the gates of Manchester Academy for this pick-and-mix line-up.
Up first, marking “Manny on the map” is Manchester birthed grime-revival artist, Bugzy Malone, accompanied by a DJ and fellow MC, who I guess is the Blousey Brown to his Bugzy. The duo was hyped to say the least, constantly bouncing and spitting out heavy insults and witty cusses by the barre. Seeing as the night was mostly dominated by rock and indie music, the grime act placed at the first slot is bound to lack some loving, despite their current popularity. The floor wasn’t filled for Bugzy, but the crowd that had pulled away from the bar were enthused, they didn’t dance but the performance was heavily respected, delivering cheers and chants of “#0161” and “Manny on the map” (whatever that means) that were frequently ignited by the duo. It’s refreshing to see that kind of appreciation from an unlikely audience, and an oddly cheerful vibe to what can be a very hateful driven genre. The one song that did migrate the crowd’s steady pulse into a communal heart attack was sassy diss-track ‘Wasteman’; Bugzy’s spiteful ode to one-hit cheesy popstar, Chipmunk. Being unfamiliar to the genre and the taste, my snotty face and I were pleasantly surprised by Bugzy Malone, not enough for me to go out and buy his latest mixtape, but enough for me to broaden my formerly close-minded perspective of grime being an upsetting genre.
Several mucus-filled tissues later, the scuffed and scraped Rat Boy launches his drink into the growing audience after bursting in with his floppy-haired band of merry men. His lyrics and vocals immediately reminded me of the infectious Jamie T, but this was an upgrade by far. Fusing punk and grunge inflections with rap and bubbly old-school tones that could easily be inspired by the soundtrack of FIFA ’98, this band had me mesmerised. Experimental sounds of fire alarms and steel drums could be found in just the right quantities, placing a clear identity to their sound. The re-invented Stig-of-the-dump screamed, hopped and shredded power chords from his fender, all while barging and bullying his worthy lead guitarist, who, whilst trying to maintain balance, swapped between his guitar and a quirky synth board. The frisky and playful relationship between the members was apparent, however they made little interaction with the crowd other than the odd lobbed drink and the one short anecdote about how he lost his job at Wetherspoon’s. One thing that did bother me was the dead-space transitions. Keeping a flow between songs is not achieved by introducing each and every track title once the room is silent. They are however, a very fresh band, so of course there is room for improvement, and I’m happy to stick with them as they climb the ranks.
At the interval I elbow my way into the besieged toilets to stuff miles of toilet paper in the back-pocket of my jeans in preparation for the impending devastation to be inflicted upon my nose and Manchester alike. As I return, with no introduction necessary, comes Drenge, armed with a recipe for ruin and a highly anticipated crowd. Having seen these guys twice already, I’ve basically revised their set-list inside-out, and with only two albums out, lack of variety is to be expected, but with these guys, that’s not the case. They still do not fail to keep me on my toes, compelling me to enjoy their live sound even more than their recorded material. When they’re live, there’s so much more vigour and pace, Eoin fucking around with feedback and stepping up each solo with each track they play, and Rory of course, setting standards that most drummers can only dream of. Rory’s deserved recognition was given to him by Eoin on the night when he joked “Rory is officially Guinness book of record’s best drummer”, provoking the teeming crowd to chant “Rory! Rory! Rory” as Eoin plays the opening riff to ‘Backwaters’, consenting the crowd that could barely stay still to restart the mosh motor, letting the music speak louder than they’ll ever need to, and making me wish me and my knocking head would let me dive into the madness. Everyone’s favourite, ‘Bloodsports’ had claimed a donor. I saw him crawl his way out from the scuffle with blood pouring out his face, and making his way towards the toilet, of which looked like a murder scene once I made my next visit, as my cold was worse, obviously. As usual, Drenge finished with ‘Let’s Pretend’, teaching the previous artists how to really end a performance, demonstrated as Eoin leaves his still-wailing guitar on the stage, rocking the set gently to sleep.
So at this point my nose has been reduced to a grisly stub after the copious amounts of sandpaper-grade toilet paper that I’ve vigorously rubbed against it, making me wonder if I should even stick around for the band that I haven’t cared about for 8 years. But before I knew it, they arrive, the reformed and refurbished, Bloc Party.
Despite my initial disinterest in the performance, the now-full venue gave the group a warm welcome after they open with ‘The Good News’ from the new Album, HYMNS, Kele returned the gesture from the crowd, “Good evening Manchester!”, shortly before sniffing and cheering “Someone’s been smoking weed!”, and of course, the crowd goes wild. My presumptions of the performance were that the band are likely a bit too experimental to put up an up-beat, headline performance, but I was mistaken. The band may be on the odd side and occasionally too experimental with their sound to deliver a dance track, throwing in saxophones, synths, looped vocals, spooky guitars, you name it, they still somehow maintained enough boisterousness that doesn’t contrast too conflictingly with the previously rowdy Drenge. The crowd were equally as quirky with their dancing too, even if they were wankered by this stage in the night. Later in the set Kele is reminded of the Class-B scent he noticed at the start, and said “If I know one city that wants to get high, it’s Manchester!” before going on to play their pro-weed track “The Love Within”. It wasn’t long until I was warmed to the almost extinguished fire that is Bloc Party, who maintained a consistency with their tracks despite using new and old material. I didn’t expect to hear a personal favourite of mine ‘Signs’ which was played in a more augmented and authentic style, as Kele jumps on the keys for the slowly swayed symphony. As they ‘finish’ and leave the stage, I remain in my place, knowing full-well that they have to come back and play ‘Helicopter’, and they do, and it shook the building. They finished on the track ‘Ratchet’, which was 10x better live. I may not have given the band’s recorded material much of a chance for a long while, and though I still haven’t grabbed a copy of their new album HYMNS, the band have my high praise for raising the stage.
NME Awards Tour was outstanding. I do feel, however, uncomfortable trying to place a stamp on who I think was the best act of the evening. They all have good qualities for the seats they sit in, but when the seats are of so varied taste, it’s difficult to compare an indie super-group up against a grime-star, for example. I walked out of Manchester Academy with a snotty smile on my face, a fresh perspective on grime, a new band on my listen-list, a grown hope for grunge’s return, and a re-found interest in a long-lost band.
Satisfied.
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