The Choir’s on Fire
This is a one off sort of show, Doves are marking the end of a successful year by playing their largest ever gig in Manchester, technically their home town – They actually hail from nearby Wilmslow in Cheshire. The chosen venue is the excellent Manchester Central (formerly GMEX), the old mainline railway station closed in 1969 and now revamped after a decade in dereliction. It probably takes the title of the most spectacular venue in the country, its huge single span arched roof dominating the surrounding area. Inside it is simply huge – an all standing venue with stage at one end and the bars and food vans at the other. It has the feel of a festival, albeit an indoor one, which was just as well as it is a freezing December night and half the country is seemingly stranded in snowdrifts. Inside its pretty chilly too and we need music to warm us up.
Support for the evening are Super Furry Animals, a band with a longer lifespan and more album releases than the headliners. Always an excellent live draw, they don’t disappoint tonight despite only having a half hour slot. They open with ‘Slow Life’, singer Gruff Rhys shuffling around in a seventies style blue anorak (appropriate given that the venue was once a magnet for trainspotters). The whole band seem to be wearing old jackets and they could easily put in a case for being the scruffiest band in Britain. Halfway through they announce a special guest and on bounds John Lennon. Well OK it was a roadie in another anorak with a picture of the ex beatle stuck on the front, but it had me fooled. This is a typical Super Furry Animals thing, they are all completely mad and possibly from another planet. They also had a neat line of placards with ‘Applause’ and Woah!’ written on them in an attempt to bring the audience to life, who were unusually for a weekend quite subdued. Set wise with no brand new material to plug (They did the show as a favour to the headliners), we get a mini greatest hits set, ‘Rings around the World’, ‘Golden Retriever’ and the sublime ‘Hello Sunshine’ all get an airing. We also get a bit of a guitar and drums thrash with the band keen to show off the heavy metal style double bass drum kit. A befits such a brief set it is over far too quickly but not before a run through of the classic ‘Man don’t give a Fuck’ which inspires some sort of mad shoe dance in the audience. An entertaining warm up from one of the great eclectic outfits of the last twenty years. An naturally they have another huge placard with ‘The End’ written on it.
Doves are here to celebrate the end of a year when their fourth album promised much and delivered only sporadically. The lack of a sure fire single or big anthem possibly held them back a bit, though as a collection of songs it’s a fine album. In fact their albums are all remarkably consistent and I can’t think of many bands who have released four quality records this decade. Thus it is tonight that they celebrate perhaps not only the year but the whole of the noughties, as they air decent amounts of tunes from each album. Kingdom of Rust does get the most though, a lively ‘10.03′ (again appropriate given the railway theme of the evening), the mesmerising ‘Jetstream’ and hit single that never was ‘Winter Hill’ being the highlights. Seven out of the eleven tracks of the album get an airing tonight. In between the set list is peppered with their greatest moments, a raucous ‘Pounding’, the gorgeous ‘Snowdon’ and crowd favourite ‘Words’ all sounding great. All the songs are supported by a huge video show mixing shots of the band with some of their old videos and an excellent light show.
The band have also taken the bold step of having the London Bulgarian Choir back them on several songs, and they certainly give a new dimension to Lost Souls track ‘Firesuite’, though they struggle to be heard on recent single ‘Kingdom of Rust’. Between main set and encore they also give us a rendition of some of their stuff too. Sinister religious cult they perhaps may be, but you have to give the band credit for trying something different, and for the most part it pays off. Towards the end of the main set is where the band really hit their straps with a superb version of ‘Black and white Town’ accompanied by gloomy urban video. They close with the 2 epics, ‘Caught by the River’ and ‘The Cedar Room’ and the point about the lack of such a tune on the last album hits home again. Encores are plenty including the return of the choir for ‘Here it Comes’ complete with Northern Soul video and the classic ‘There goes the Fear’ with a mass percussion jam at the end. Then that’s it and the crowd files away only for the band to return for a surprise encore of their previous incarnation Sub Sub’s ‘Spaceface’, and for a few minutes its 1989 in Madchester again.
Like a lot of their best tunes the gig took a while to build to a crescendo, but certainly reached the heights in the latter half. The main problem with tonight was that the crowd was a bit quiet, and I suspected a lot of folk were seeing the band for the first time. Whilst the lights and stage show worked in such a venue perhaps surprisingly some of the songs got a bit lost in the cavernous venue which was busy but not quite sold out. But overall it was a pretty decent 2 hours and I look forward to seeing them hopefully in 2010 at a festival, that’s where they are at their best. And I managed the whole review without mentioning Elbow.
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