14th March
Soup Kitchen
7/10
It’s strange how disproportionately little UK traction Australian band The Preatures have made. Even before releasing their debut album, the band were one of the most hyped breakthrough bands from last year, opening the main stage at Coachella and playing on Jimmy Kimmel in the USA, while being chosen to support the Rolling Stones on tour in native Australia. It was interesting to see how it these performances would compare to a basement show in Manchester (a country where their album still hasn’t been released yet, after a seven month gap).
Despite these setbacks and slightly smaller crowd, The Preatures easily filled the Soup Kitchen with their larger than life charisma. Early highlights come in the form of the dancey ‘Somebody’s Talking’ and ‘Cruel’, whose infectious energy couldn’t help but rub off on the crowd. However other songs such as ‘Two Tone Melody’ and ‘Ordinary’ actually carried more weight than on the record, and slow down the gig somewhat. Throughout these performances front woman Izzy Manfreddi charismatically stares and interacts with the crowd to the point of being slightly intimidating, but at least this keeps this audience involved with the show, albeit slightly uncomfortably.
While the show largely focused on debut album Planet Blue Eyes, the highlight of the set came in the from ‘Take A Card’ from their early Shaking Hands EP, which saw guitarist Gideon Bensen step out from the shadows to take over the vocals from Manfreddi. The way he belted out the song as if his life depended on it made it the most impressive song of the set.
The Preatures finished on an encore of the slower ‘Business, Yeah’, before launching into their hit single ‘Is This How You Feel?’ which got the room moving one last time. It was brilliant to see The Preatures control the atmosphere of such a small venue, as with such a likeable sound and energy like theirs have you can’t imagine them playing small venues forever. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to them, go and check out their debut album, which is out in April.
