Live: The Blackout @ Academy 1

The Blackout
Academy 1
5 November
4 stars

For years, The Blackout have enjoyed underground success but 2011 has been a prominent year for them with the release of their fourth album, Hope, and supporting My Chemical Romance on their UK arena tour.

Support act, Canterbury, kick off tonight’s proceedings but their set leaves a lot to be desired. The music is just very boring and their stage presence is lacklustre, but a select few seem to enjoy themselves during the set.
Essex boys, We Are the Ocean, are a bit more enthusiastic with frontman and screamer Dan Brown jumping around like a kid with A.D.D. and screaming the line “How we doing Manchester?” more than he actually sings. The set is only short but draws on their EPs and two studio albums with a particular highlight being ‘Confessions’ which is predominantly sung by clean vocalist and guitarist Liam Cromby.

The Blackout start off with ‘This is Our Time’ and ‘Ambition is Critical’, taken from their newest release, Hope, followed by ‘Save Our Selves (The Warning)’ and ‘It’s High Tide Baby!’ where it is hard not to join in with the “Woahs” in the chorus. In between every second or third song there seems to be a joke from either of the frontmen Gavin Butler or Sean Smith, turning almost into a comedy roadshow which makes the entire set flow so well. Even without Youmeatsix’s Josh Franceschi to perform his usual vocals on ‘This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things’ the song is one of the best of The Blackout’s back catalogue. Older songs like ‘I’m a Riot? You’re a Fucking Riot!’ and ‘Spread Legs, Not Lies’ are still crowd favourites.

The Blackout’s underground days seem to have come to an end and with performances like this they are due to be one of the best British bands in years to come.