– SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER –
It has been a while since I walked into a gig half way through the support act and immediately thought this is good…no, this is great. And glancing across at my partner in crime for the evening, she too is nodding along in complete agreement.
I would like to say ‘you heard it here first’ but if you are reading Silent Radio, chances are, you will already have heard Clock Opera. I shall certainly be investing in their first album shaped offering, I suggest you do too.
Tonight, Sound Control is already hot and sweaty, and with the reputation the main event already carries, it is going to get hotter and sweatier. At first listen some of Crystal Fighters catalogue is an unusual sound in this day and age, but you just can’t help tapping your feet and nodding your head.
The overall sound of Crystal fighters could not be far more removed from their latest single ‘Plage’. They are Spanish percussion, flamenco style guitars, grime/techno bass lines and hip hop drum beats.
I decide that the best place to view the ensuing sweatbox would be from the back. It is nice to be in all the action up at the front, but it also sometimes good to stand back and watch the crowd’s reaction.
From the opening refrains of Solar System it looks like the young student audience are ready to party. In fact it looks like some of them have already partied quite hard, as a gurning girl is guided out passed us by her friends. Must have been one too many Jagerbombs. This will not be the last we see of her tonight either.
The band continue with the single Champion Sound, and I am left wondering if it is not a bit early in the set for their best known piece of work. The evening continues at a great pace with album favourites, Follow, Swallow, I Love London and Fiesta.
Crystal Fighters seem to have hit their peak at this point and for a few tracks it is that point in the gig when people nip to the loo, refresh their glasses and generally have a chat. Our chat was ‘why do some young students feel the need to dress like my gran?’
It is an expensive time to be a student and to live in general at the moment, so perhaps that is the only way they can afford to go to gigs and buy beer.
Gurning girl is on her way back in looking only slightly better than before as the band launch into Plage, which as expected has the whole crowd singing along and the singalong is completed as they finish with At home.
If you need cheering up through these bleak financial days, here is a quick fix. It won’t pay off your overdraft or student loan, but it will help you forget for a while and that is all we can ask for these days.
