Manchester Orchestra
Glasgow Barrowland
Saturday 6th November
With two albums under their belt and a pretty dedicated following of their own, Manchester Orchestra seemed completely out of their comfort zone playing to a room of restless Biffy Clyro fans.
Their sound is a much more delicate thing than that of the headliners, and unfortunately not a lot of the Barrowlands crowd are in the mood for listening.
As if to acknowledge this fact, Manchester Orchestra play a mere five songs – their set just short of half an hour. In comparison to headline shows, this must be pretty much like pulling the plug on them just as they’re getting in to their stride.
Playing four songs from their latest album, Mean Everything To Nothing – with the beautiful Where Have You Been from their first album thrown in for good measure, everything sounds impeccable. Every quiet loud transition is delivered just as it should, every vocal is delivered with heartbreaking vulnerability, and those in the room with the manners to pay attention provide applause that gets consistently louder as the set unravels.
While the band wisely focus most of their energy on the more instant songs in their repetoire, perhaps their 6 minute mini-epics are just too heavy going and serious for a Biffy support band. Not playing their two and a half minute gem The Only One seems like a missed trick, and one they could almost certainly have slipped in without going noticeably over their allocated stage time.
Despite the tepid response, Manchester Orchestra proved themselves to be a band certainly worth seeing, and masters at their art. Although we’d rather see them in front of their own crowd next time.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.