It’s funny how a nasal Mancunian singing voice and eyebrows can seem so familiar… But it’s not until after Villanelle’s set that I find out why.
The group – presumably named after the Killing Eve character – appear shy. Their heavy-indie-meets-stadium-rock-n-roll ought to look showy, but these boys barely move a muscle.
If you close your eyes, you can imagine them really going for it, bolting around a massive stage with fervour … and when their careful 26 minute set comes to a blistering end, the crowd cheers as if they did.
Perhaps following in the footsteps of singer Gene Gallagher’s dad, Liam, creates a sort of stage fright – but if time can overcome that, Villanelle seem otherwise a pretty polished and compelling package.
Headliners Overpass have a more natural energy to their performance – though it’s the capacity crowd that do most of the jumping around.
The Birmingham band tread a very familiar music path, singing songs that are of an age; of a time; and of a place. It’s like a documentary in song form on what it’s like to be a young lad in the Midlands in the 21st century (or so I assume).
Like the Arctic Monkeys and Catfish and the Bottlemen before them, this stuff can simultaneously soundtrack and describe their own Friday nights. It’s a powerful formula, but highly competitive territory.
Playing a selection of ‘older’ tunes (by which I mean, a couple of years old – Overpass haven’t even released a debut album yet), some unreleased songs and the tracks of their new EP ‘From the night’, the tunes maintain a pretty consistent pace and energy throughout.
It works well, but it will be interesting to see how Overpass can evolve to face off their peers – like Scotland’s Vistas or The Snuts.
It would be great to hear them find their ‘acoustic one’, where frontman Max Newbold could show off the tenderness of his vocals and create the sort of iconic singalong moment that Twin Atlantic has with ‘Crashland’.
The key to pulling this off is having great songwriting to underpin it – and that is definitely there. Pushing their sound a bit further away from their influences (‘From the night’ feels like a very close cousin of Coldplay’s ‘Shiver’, for example) would be a great way to grow.
Set closer ‘3am’ is an oldie by Overpass standards, and the crowd greets it like the chart topper it could’ve been in the 90s. They could’ve played it on TFI Friday one week and Top of the Pops the next.
There’s a thrilling atmosphere in the room as the band leaves the stage. Overpass doesn’t feel like a buzz band that anyone’s been encouraged to like – the back of the venue doesn’t appear to be padded out with industry types – but they’re just a band that people like because they’re good. And that’s a great thing to be.