INTERVIEW – IDLES (Joe & Bowen)

The Idles boys were back in town, so we (Max & Simon) though it best to have a quick catch up with them, our last meeting was the December of 2016 ahead of their Night and Day Cafe show. Almost 18 months later we’re back stage at Gorilla before they entertain Manchester on a much […]

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- The steam rising from the oversold and packed crowd gathered in Gorilla on this warm early Summer’s evening is testament to just how huge this band have become in a short space of time. Plus it’s also proof that no matter how much Manchester’s skyline changes with new developments, as the city expands, […]

LIVE: ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVER – 21/05/2018

LIVE: DRENGE – 02/05/2018

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- My only live experience of Sheffield-based Drenge prior to tonight was in a television studio in Kent, the band performing a couple of songs to promote its self-titled début album in 2013. At the time, Drenge was very much just youthful brothers Rory (drums) and Eoin (vocals and guitar). Watching them perform, one […]

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- It’s three days since I was last in exactly the same place, and four since I conked my head on, of all places, the floor. On my way in the bouncer also knocks his head, on the less ridiculous place of the brick arch he is standing under at the entrance to Gorilla. […]

LIVE: HINDS – 17/04/2018

LIVE: THE ORIELLES – 14/04/2018

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Disclaimer: yesterday I hit myself on the head embarrassingly forcefully. With that mild concussion in mind, I’ll be keeping this brief. The album sleeve for The Orielles’ Silver Dollar Moment is smears and dabs of bright colours. For myself, and maybe others, the record came along without warning. From nowhere, the chimes of […]

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Idles have not been an easy band to see in Manchester since they caught fire at the tail end of 2016. Their only appearance last year was at the Neighbourhood Festival in October, their Spring tour curiously skipping Cottonopolis. It all means that the anticipation tonight at Gorilla as they take the stage […]

LIVE: IDLES – 18/04/2018

LIVE: SUNFLOWER BEAN / SORRY – 30/03/2018

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Between Stormzy and J Hus, the UK album chart has a welcome anomaly: Twentytwo in Blue, cruising from the indie backwaters into a position that makes you feel, in a fleeting heartbeat, that young bands are still rewarded for their work. Sunflower Bean’s sophomore LP deserves the status. It is a polished, reptilian […]

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Not an awful lot has come out of Sunderland apart from my Grandpa, the fabulous Andy Dawson from the Athletico Mince podcast and St Bede, the monk. To that list we have now been able to add Field Music. Ostensibly formed of the Brewis brothers – David and Peter – by the time […]

LIVE: FIELD MUSIC – 16/03/2018

LIVE: BAXTER DURY – 21/02/2018

– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – It’s just gone nine, the band are on stage. They launch into ‘Isabel’ from the 2011 album Happy Soup, but there’s someone missing from the stage. Just in time and to a big cheer from the crowd our host for the night Baxter Dury enters stage right looking rather dapper. The […]

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- You must have to be a right arsehole not to like The Go! Team. Like, the type of person who voted for Brexit, then emigrated to America, especially to vote for Trump and followed it up with a really, badly worded comment on a Daily Mail website article about immigration. One of them, […]