Tigerside @ Soup Kitchen, Manchester, 25 Jun
"For those of you who couldn’t make Glastonbury at least we’ve got the smell here”, says Tigerside vocalist Jonno aka John Nash, referring to the all-pervading tang of stale urine that hangs over Soup Kitchen tonight. The venue redefines ‘bohemian’ with every visit.
Tigerside was born out of a chance meeting at Glastonbury but in common with the other two bands tonight it might never play there. That doesn’t stop any of them putting on a show as satisfying as anything you’d find on a lesser stage in a forlorn field in Somerset, dressed in your monsoon survival gear.
First up is Stoke-based Bonsai, an indie-rock outfit inspired by The Courteeners and Catfish and the Bottlemen. Someone suggests The National and it’s possible to see why. There’s plenty of variety in their short set, the last song in particular being a funkier number that gets the crowd going, and hints at where they might attract the attention that will fulfil their ambition of "people getting sick of hearing our songs on the radio 12 times a day."
Guitar-based indie rock bands are so prevalent that having a USP is pretty essential. Bonsai’s is singer Chris Hough, who has the voice and attitude to front just about any band.
Manchester’s Rivet City, with exactly the same guitar line-up, does funk and blues as a matter of course. Singer Jake Breeze doesn’t command the stage as Hough does – though at times he does a pretty good take on Phil Collins both vocally and visually – but the band weaves quite intricate patterns, as you might expect from one influenced by the likes of Jamiroquai and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and manages to evoke Arctic Monkeys as the set progresses. It ends with a rousing rock number, Street Noise, confirming they have another string to their bow.
With the Labour leader making his guest appearance at Glastonbury a band-led rendition of that old favourite Oh, Jeremy Corbyn might have been expected sometime during the evening, but it falls a bit flat. If you want to write politics into your songs by all means do so, but best otherwise to avoid it.
This is the third time I’ve seen Salford’s ‘posthousepunkpoppers’ Tigerside in just over a year, and is also the most gratifying. That’s partly because they’ve sorted out sound problems which at their last Manchester show had the percussion sounding like massed drums at The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and the vocals indistinguishable from intergalactic radio static.
Tonight they sound like a band instead of a Wall of Sound mash-up; individual notes played by guitarist Greggs (aka Paul Gregory) and keyboardist Riven Seamarks (who a week ago was opening – with the G.O.D. – for the Stone Roses at Wembley Stadium) can be heard as if a hearing aid was just switched on. It is also evident how Jonno’s and Esther’s vocals complement each other, and how in the absence of a bass player David Eagle’s consistently tight drumming underpins everything they do.
Pub quizzers might recall Unit 4 + 2, who topped the charts in 1965 with Concrete and Clay. The very visual Tigerside is Unit 4 + 1, the outlier being Riven, who quietly gets on with the job of guiding the band’s indefinable ‘modern Manchester music’ with the same detachment as Vince Clarke does in Erasure, and to the same effect.
Running through a nine-song set that includes what are now old favourites like La La Samba and Song for the Crow, the song of the evening, still, is Pen Lea – titled after the lifeboat disaster, if spelled differently – on account of it being the most melodic. Melody is perhaps something Tigerside could dig up a little more of. They’ve got the groove but a good tune always wins new admirers.
They’ve also gained in professionalism, offering up a much sleeker collective stage persona. That might have been influenced by some considerable exposure in the Twittersphere just recently, though Donald has yet to join in.
The lasting impression of the evening where Tigerside is concerned is one that suggests a return to the muddy fields of its birthplace might just be on the cards after all.