Underachievers Please Try Harder

Apologies for our absence last week. We were living it up in Berlin, which made it a lot more difficult to keep our ears to the ground (and our eyes on Twitter) as far as Manchester events were concerned. We’re back just in time for freshers week, but don’t worry: if fancy-dress-themed debauchery isn’t your cup of tea, there’s still plenty to do.

Tuesday 20th September

Fear Of Men and The Louche FC at the Castle

Two buzz bands for the price of less than one? An absolute bargain, and it helps that both Fear Of Men and The Louche FC are well worth your time. Another positive: the Castle’s backroom makes for a great little venue. Not to be missed.

Wednesday 21st September

The Great Gatsby at The Met

Bury may be a little further out than you would usually venture, but the Metrolink makes travel easy enough, and an opportunity to see The Great Gatsby – an absolutely superlative novel, elements of which certainly lend themselves to the theatre – is not one to pass up.

Thursday 22nd September

Slow Club at the Ruby Lounge

Sheffield’s finest, Slow Club have carved out a niche for themselves as a cutesy indie pop with actual chops. With new album Paradise released last week, now’s as good a time as any to see them.

Friday 23rd September

Underachievers Please Try Harder at the Roadhouse

The long-awaited return of one of our favourite club nights. After a brief stint at Gullivers, Underachievers will now be starring at the Roadhouse, which could well be a marriage made in heaven. After Let’s Buy Happiness and Evans The Death (both worth getting down early for) have provided the music, make sure you’ve got your dancing shoes on for a tour through the very best indie rock.

Saturday 24th September

Ford Madox Brown: Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer at Manchester Art Gallery

Given that Manchester’s most recent tribute to 19th century painter Ford Madox Brown was the naming of a Wetherspoon’s after him, a new retrospective is somewhat overdue. Spanning the length of his career, this exhibition considers the influence Brown had on the artists who followed him.

Sunday 25th September

American Street Fun Fair at Tib Street

To commemorate 10 years of Northern Quarter bar and restaurant Simple…, Tib Street will be transformed into a haven of rides and cheerleaders and cotton candy and any number of other American-themed trappings. Should be a colourful day’s entertainment…

Manchester Print Fair at the Night & Day

…and whilst you’re in the area, the Manchester Print Fair is being launched at the Night & Day. Celebrating the best of local art and design, you’ll be able to pick up prints, posters, and all manner of publications. Worth dropping by and checking out what’s on offer: there’s plenty of great zines and the like being produced in this city, many of which will be available here.

Bad Shoes Art Festival at Dulcimer and Elektrik

Rounding off a busy Sunday, don’t forget to save enough time to head out to Chorlton for the Bad Shoes Art Festival, a collaboration between Bad Language Manchester and Shoestring Magazine. With music and artists at Dulcimer and literature and crafts at Elektrik, there should be a diverse mix of culture on offer.

The Roadhouse’s popularity may have diminished in the face of the Deaf Institute’s monopolistic hold on the Manchester music scene, but it still makes for a great live venue. On paper, the Tuesday immediately following a Bank Holiday Monday is not an ideal night to put on an event, but the way to counter that is to book a lineup too good to ignore. That’s the strategy promoters Underachievers Please Try Harder and Hey! Manchester went with, and as the place fills up a sense of anticipation starts to build amongst an audience who know that they’re about to see something special.

Opening band The ABC Club wear their influences on their sleeves just enough that you know where they’re coming from (which is New York City by way of Manchester), but not so much as to sound derivative. The guitar interplay hints at the Strokes, but the vocals are less Julian Casablanca’s affected nonchalance and more Debbie Harry’s restrained passion without the overtly pop trappings, unhurried yet still urgent and full of soul. The scattershot energy of the drumming complements the songs perfectly, and the overall effect is immensely impressive. Clearly, this is a band with enough in their repertoire to release a great debut album in the not-too-distant future.

Help Stamp Out Loneliness (pictured above) have already done that; their fantastic first record inevitably drew comparisons to Belle and Sebastian, but they’re a very different proposition live. Their songs feel more charged, more powerful, like Beat Happening without the rough edges. D. Lucille Campbell’s vocals shine in this setting, too; the lyrics switch effortlessly from withering putdowns to genuine heartbreak, and the delivery of every line is flawless. Enough of their indie pop insticts shine through to get the audience shuffling along to the music, and everything about them suggests that there is still a hell of a lot more to come.

The evening’s main attraction more than live up to the high standards set by the support bands. Comet Gain (pictured first) are purveyors of a very British brand of indie: that means earnest lyrics married to infectious melodies, guitars competing against slightly shouted vocals, and a confidence that may well be entirely bravado. Once they launch into their set, there’s energy enough in the music to evoke the spirit of ’77 (the Undertones, rather than the Pistols), and the atmosphere is almost celebratory, as though the band are fully aware that they’ve just put out their best album to date. Indeed, the songs from the justly lauded Howl Of The Lonely Crowd stand out, and the crowd is on board from the start. More nuanced than first impressions suggest, there is an understated beauty that underpins their very best tracks, and they turn in the type of performance that suggests their status as future indie rock royalty is guaranteed.

Upon leaving, anticipation has given way to certainty: we have just seen something special. An outstanding lineup means nothing if the bands don’t deliver on the night, yet all three acts easily exceeded expectations. That two of them hail from Manchester makes it all the sweeter.

—Onward, Manchester.

Archive

Things to do: Monday 19th September to Sunday 25th September

Gig Review: Comet Gain, Help Stamp Out Loneliness, and The ABC Club

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