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Day: 8 February 2012

Live: I Am The Avalanche @ Moho

Written by Frances Roach on . Posted in Music.

I Am The Avalanche
Moho Live
11th December
3 and a half stars

After witnessing the high interaction and intensity seen from both band and audience via the Liverpool show at The Magnet and despite the band calling this show “the best show of the tour so far”, I still had high expectations of the Manchester show at Moho.

Starting with current album opener ‘Holy Fuck’, and including a string of classics ‘New Disaster’, ‘This Is Dungeon Music’ and crowd favourite ‘Green Eyes’, they play their way through an enduring set- tight guitars, even tighter backing rhythm and vocals loaded with rawness.

The only disappointment was not from the band itself, who provided an exciting set that was more than pleasing, but from the abnormally lacklustre crowd. Maybe this was due to the majority of the audience being relatively new listeners of the band, since their latest release Avalanche United is their first since 2005, or purely for the fact that it is a Sunday night leading up to one of the most stressful weeks of the seasonal calendar.

Despite the bizarre lack of movement for a typical punk show, the audience were still fully attentive and I Am The Avalanche continued to display their impressive collection of songs to the fullest, with heightened levels of energy and rawness, which subsequently encouraged the crowd to get more involved. The second half of the set was much more receptive, with singer Vinnie Caruana and the crowd singing in unison to current single ‘Brooklyn Dodgers’ which received the loudest sing-a-long of the night.

The acutely solid performance from the five piece was definitely worth the wait. Luckily, UK fans won’t have to wait long to see them again-next up is a support slot on the highly anticipated UK Tour with Brand New. Let’s just hope Manchester actually represents in February.

To see our review of I Am The Avalanches’ most recent album, Avalanche United, click here.

Live: Panic! At The Disco @ Apollo

Written by Frances Roach on . Posted in Music.

Panic! At The Disco
O2 Apollo
27th January
4 stars

I was surprised to see Panic! At The Disco play to a sold out Apollo, considering their last two trips to Manchester saw them playing a much smaller Academy 1, during their peak. Over the past two years, they have brought back the ! in their name and seen two of their founding members quit, leaving them as a two-piece and taking additional touring members onto the road. However, their live shows haven’t suffered. In fact, the production seen on this bigger stage was quite impressive.

Playing a rather long set list with well balanced mixture of songs from their three album back catalogue, the 3500 people present were getting their money’s worth. There was the added bonus of an interesting cover of MJ’s ‘Billie Jean’, followed by a surprising rendition of The Darkness’ ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’. Weird, but extremely hard not to enjoy.  The loudest reaction, predictably, was from songs off their debut album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, and their biggest hit ‘I Write Sins, Not Tragedies’, where uproar was at its peak.

The crowd, surprisingly, was quite varied in terms of age, with a good amount of adults dotted around; who didn’t look like they were there to chaperone any kids, but were there purely for the music. This is definitely a change to the crowd I witnessed at their Manchester show back in 2008, where the majority was barely legal. The past few years have seen Panic! At The Disco deviate from a stereotyped “emo” band and appreciated for their music ability. Many had doubts that they would be able to continue success as a core two-piece, however based on this satisfyingly lengthy performance and the admiration from the crowd, it looks like Panic! will be back around soon enough.

Panic! At The Disco – Ready To Go

Why I love… Jazz

Written by Ollie Cartwright on . Posted in Music.

Manager of the UoM Big Band Society, Ollie Cartwright, gives us his opinion on why jazz deserves more attention:

Jazz has got an image problem. Just reading the word sends people scurrying away in fear. It shouldn’t be this way. I was bitten by the Jazz bug early and I’ve loved it ever since. Hopefully by giving some reasons why I can encourage those more open-minded readers to take the plunge and learn to love Jazz too.

What people always seem unaware of is the sheer variety of musical styles that come under the umbrella of Jazz. It’s a musical style straddling more than 100 years so it’s quite a large umbrella with something for everyone. Robert Glasper is a pianist and producer whose hip-hop infused Jazz has seen him collaborate with everyone from J Dilla to Jay-Z. Glasper gigs often turn into impromptu jam sessions with the likes of Mos Def and Kanye-West. He even plays Radiohead and Nirvana. Not the realm of the cocktail pianist I’m sure you’ll agree.

For the fans of the more aggressive genre, I offer up Pharoah Sanders. As well as having one of the coolest names you’re ever likely to hear, this saxophonist coaxes screams from his instrument that wouldn’t sound out of place in the most depraved of horror films. In ‘Olé’ from the album Heart Is A Melody, ‘The Pharoah’ builds his improvisation to an emotional intensity and then, with nowhere else to go, takes the saxophone out of his mouth and bellows into the audience. Why? That’s for the listener to decide.

Jazz is an anything goes genre. Quite literally anything can happen and that’s the excitement. This isn’t a music where the band turn up and crank out their hits. This is a music that dares to be different, every single night. Give it a try.

Robert Glasper – Downtime

Pharoah Sanders – You Got To Have Freedom

F is for… Freud

Written by Claudia Canavan on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

‘I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite because of what they are like, but how they happen to be’; so said Lucien Freud, the recently deceased grandson of Sigmund, acclaimed artist and friend to a host of international fashion icons. Characterized by his creativity, charm and apparent disregard for what anyone else may happen to think, his life was a tumultuous whirlwind of highs, lows, portraiture and an array of impossibly fabulous people.

Having fled Nazi persecution in Berlin at the tender age of ten, Freud arrived in London in 1933. Following such a terrifyingly intense start in life, including a stint as a sailor in the merchant navy during the Second World War, he later moved to Paris, where his apartment bordered on that of Jean- Paul Sartre’s.

A friendship with Kate Moss originated through an introduction via his daughter Bella, a designer whose company logo is an illustration of her irreverent father’s. His interest in her career plus Kates’ love of sitting for him combined with his adoration of parties and socialising meant that he continued to be a regular at glitterati events well into his old age.

Despite a gambling habit which saw him accrue some mountainous debts (which unfortunately coincided with a period in the eighties in which his often brutally realistic paintings went out of fashion) Freud managed to make his work relevant again in later years. Flawed in his youth through an often selfish predisposition, his older years saw him take on a slightly more contemplative air, with an adoration of his children allowing him to compensate for bouts of absenteeism in their childhood.

A remarkable life, in which zig zags across the world allowed him to fit more into one lifetime than the majority of us could dream of, and renowned for his charisma and talent, the memory of Lucien Freud is sure to persist through the legacy of his fantastically intriguing portraits.

 

Blind date: Lloyd and Tasha

Written by Lily Howes on . Posted in Lifestyle.

Lloyd, Third year Computer Science & Mancunion columnist/web expert

What were your expectations for the evening?

To finally escape the dungeon of computers I have been trapped in for the last few months and communicate with a biological entity

First impressions?

Humanoid

What did you talk about?

I think I mentioned my passion for prehistoric reptiles and most notably a great 90’s sitcom involving them; it was very polite of her to not walk out after that

Best thing about them?

Not a computer

What did you eat?

A bleeding bulk of bovine

Any awkwardness?

When she mentioned her love of sushi – but not fish

How did you part ways? (Mouth-to-mouth action/heavy petting/friendly hug?)

A big Hi-five, actually it may have been just a hug

Out of 10?

8

Would you see them again?

Due to the grand revelation that we have a friend common, it’s possible that we may bump into each other at some point.

 

Tasha, Third year Zoology

What were your expectations for the evening?

Free food and nice company

First impressions?

Good glasses

What did you talk about?

His love for dinosaurs and fast cycling – he was definitely a talker!

Best thing about them?

A great and highly animated story teller

What did you eat?

A chicken dish off the specials

Any awkwardness?

Whenever the waiter asked us a question I think it was quite awkward as neither of us were particularly forward in taking the lead in answering

How did you part ways? (Mouth-to-mouth action/heavy petting/friendly hug?)

Friendly hug

Out of 10?

6

Would you see them again?

Possibly as a friend but otherwise I feel he may be a bit ‘bare alternative’ for me

 

Lloyd and Tasha ate at The Deaf Institute, Grosvenor Street, Manchester. Thanks to the guys down at Grosvenor Street for getting involved. To check out their menu, gig listings and have a look at what club nights are coming up visit their website www.thedeafinstitute.co.uk

To sign up for blind date please e mail your name, year of study and course to[email protected] with ‘blind date’ as the subject

Column: A Visual Revolution

Written by Tom Hickman on . Posted in Music.

I can’t deny that over the last few weeks a welcome revision break of mine has previously been to fill the time meant for learning of Churchill’s cabinet for war and the spate of unemployment throughout the interwar period, to instead indulge in some of the finest offerings the BBC’s archive has had to offer in the way of Top of the Pops classics. Great pleasure was taken from watching a surprisingly fresh-faced Bowie, as well as Robert Smith’s eternal battle with his inordinate amount of hair. There was also the treat of the quite brilliant gyrations of a certain solo male dancer to accompany the funk-ridden grooves of 70s disco favourite, Shirley Lites.

Fast-forward twenty years and it’s a very different world. Last Friday saw the release of The Chemical Brothers’ debut film Don’t Think. Taken from a concert with what’s considered to be one of the band’s most receptive audiences, the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan, the 85-minute theatrical roller coaster documents the true experience of the band’s live performance. Brought to us in high definition and Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound (I realise that doesn’t really mean very much to almost all of us, apart from the fact that it’s fucking loud), the truly terrifying nature of the band’s notorious clown insignia is brought to a harrowing reality, that even the most sinister of horror films would find it hard to convey.

Yes, this production may just be seen as a self-indulgent, glorified gig. Nevertheless, whilst other Mancunian acts from their time are dredging through the past to gain one final payout off the back of a comeback tour, The Chemical Brothers are still pioneers within their field. Long gone are the days of one slick-hipped young gentleman being the accompaniment to dance music; the industry is moving at a rapid rate and on this evidence, it’s only going to get better.

Full trailer for Don’t Think