As crowd surfers pop up left right and centre in my eyeline, heads bounce around and the floor rattles in synchronisation… I realise that Superheaven have maybe revived an overall abysmal day. The power of music, eh?
Despite preferring their earlier stuff to their most recent album, Superheaven have still taken up a humongous amount of time in my headphones over the years. And this is my first time seeing them, it’s a real rarity for these sorts of bands to come to the UK so it’s impossible to avoid snatching a ticket whilst you can. As you can imagine, I’m excited, then the day comes and I spend it travelling around the northwest, first to watch an abysmal game of football, then to unintentionally get back into Manchester almost 4 hours before Superheaven come out. Put it this way, they’ve got their work cut out for them.
As I arrive to the overly familiar Ritz, considering how early I was, I thought it’d be relatively empty… it was crammed. Soul Fly grace the stage first, with heavy riffs and ribcage rattling basslines, a solid start. Next, Balance and Composure, who I lacked any prior knowledge about, and I absolutely loved them. A solid balance of heaviness mixed with jangly Midwest-emo riffage and the perfect type of vocals for it all. I’m not too sure how I’ve gone without this for so many years.
Now it’s Superheaven time, a crowd brimming with anticipation who’ve had to wait till 9:50pm for this, it was bound to be havoc when they come out. As the first notes hit of Stare At The Void’s opening riff, the crowd absolutely loses the plot, and the room sinks into complete carnage. The tone is just perfect; every single song sounds exactly how I’d expected. Now a few songs in, there’s a medical emergency in the crowd and paramedics are being sent in causing the band to stop and the lights to come back on, then inaudible chants start coming from the pit, which prompts guitarist Taylor Madison to encourage the crowd to find who’s chanting and “slit their throat” … typical. The setlist continues and we’re in classics territory now, songs like Youngest Daughter and Downswing are causing chaos, the floor has become a therapy session for everyone to just let out emotion, and people are very clearly getting stuck in. Youngest Daughter was nothing short of perfect live, each drop hitting just as hard as it should, and I can’t stress enough how flawless the tone these guys have is.
As the set progresses the band announce they’ve got two songs left, which I must admit was heavily disappointing, an hour headline set is just too short. In on it and Poor Aileen send everyone into frenzy though, which almost redeemed the fact that that it was already time to leave. The build-up of energy throughout the gig led to a huge cathartic release as the opening riff of Poor Aileen rips through the sound system, and anyone who hadn’t already been flinging themselves around had one last chance. The Ritz erupts with cheers and shouts of excitement, and as the band run through one of their most iconic tunes, I realise that live music is triumphant once again. My day is made.
