The Hotelier
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER –
I’m pretty overjoyed that The Hotelier is my first gig of 2017, even on a Monday night (seriously, Monday night gigs should be banned…). The start of 2017 has been tainted by the swearing in of that monster in America, and even the heart swelling scenes of the millions joining in with the weekend’s Women’s March events across the globe hasn’t fully lifted my spirits at the prospect of the state of the world after these next four years. What The Hotelier offer, though, is light at the end of a particularly dark tunnel; the chance to holler along to their songs of just getting on with it in the face of tough times, hanging on to the hope that tomorrow will be a bit better. On a freezing cold night in the middle of January, it’s just what I need.
For a Monday night Gorilla is pretty damn busy, a step up of venue for the band from the last time I saw them at Sound Control last year, probably a result of the positive word of mouth surrounding their incredible second album Home, Like Noplace Is There from 2014, and its more than solid follow up Goodness last year. After a stellar selection of warm up music played over the PA that includes two ABBA songs, the band amble on stage and kick into the jangling guitars of ‘An Introduction to the Album’ from Home…. Immediately the crowd holler back the opening lines of “open the curtains/singing birds tell me ‘tear the buildings down’'”. Just like that the crowd are theirs, everyone hanging on every single line of the song, singing along pretty much word perfect to a man, the crescendos coming for lines like “I searched for a way out/don’t we all?” and the perfect mid-song singular scream of “FUCK” that leads into the ferocious last verse, almost screamed by frontman Christian Holden as waves of fists punch the air. To say it’s an emotional (they do carry the ‘emo’ tag after all) and cathartic start to the gig would be a understatement. It means something in the face of recent events.
It sets the tone for the rest of the gig, the mixture of classics from Home… and the pick of the songs from Goodness getting a similarly enthusiastic reception throughout the night. The one-two-three of some of their most pummelling rockers ‘Piano Player’, ‘Among The Wildflowers’ and ‘Life In Drag’ is immense, the sheer passion with which the band thrash out “Life In Drag’ particularly is a joy to behold; they’re so tight with it too, never a beat missed, but carrying the impression that it could all fall apart at any time. The intense mood is punctuated by an incredibly pretty rendition of the nursery rhyme interlude from Goodness, ‘I See The Moon’, stretched out for about 90 seconds, a blissed out juxtaposition to the fury that has gone before. Holden tells us he spent the night in a casino in Manchester last night, and a man who he was sat with asked if his band sounded like Blink-182, and with a chuckle Holden replied “kinda”. Blink-182 wish; they don’t have even an ounce of the passion this band do, never mind the ferocity.
The Hotelier
’Soft Animal’, with it’s made-for-shouting refrain of “make me feel alive/make me feel that I don’t have to die” is sublime, as is the 6 min Goodness centrepiece ‘Sun’, where the band go somewhere near post-rock. When Holden snaps one of the strings on his bass (“it’s rarer than a unicorn seeing a bass string snap”), it takes a good 10 mins to put right (“just our luck to have a support band with no bassist”), and as a result the band offer to play more songs than their setlist runs to, including taking a request for debut album cut ‘Weathered’ from the crowd. It’s an emotional run through of ‘Dendron’ that near sets me off with the tears, the song that is about coping with the suicide of a friend and how depression can consume you, with it’s kiss off line of “tell me again that it’s all in my head” one of the most poignant things on Home…, which is quite an achievement.
It’s the way The Hotelier use bad shit that has happened to them to write songs that, whilst sometimes pretty dark, are actually incredibly uplifting, and songs that mean an awful lot to a lot of people. Home…is one of those albums that helps people through bad times (much like The Antlers’ Hospice), gives them hope that there are people like them around, they’re not alone, that it can get better, and when those people are gathered in a room together with the band putting everything into every last note for them, it can’t help but inspire and lift you. We may have some dark times ahead of us, but I know that bands like The Hotelier will be there to help out in the worst of them, and for that I am truly grateful.
The Hotelier Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter
