Openers Kaputt have developed a tight local following over the past few years, well evidenced by the pocket of hardcore fans at the barrier for their opening set. It’s an (expectedly) sparse offering elsewhere, but the seven piece deliver a ferocious opening few songs, Cal Donnelly’s barking vocals commanding attention. They get a little wavy in the mid-section, swapping instruments and delving into electronics, but the double saxophone is returned with a flourish for a killer closer.
Somewhat like Kaputt, Blue Bendy come across like an edgier Black Country, New Road, the pretensions kept in check by remaining breezily fun, but no less intense for it. Vocalist Arthur Nolan is visibly awed to be on the big, iconic Barrowlands stage, throwing a lot of love at the steadily filling room between his inscrutable one-liners and the band’s eclectic jams.
Even in the perennially weird Speedy Wunderground production family, Squid still feel like outsiders. More interested in experimentation for the music’s sake, rather than simply creating chaos (black midi), and always obscuring any melodic hook beneath layers of noise rather than accentuating a big chorus (Fontaines D.C., Wet Leg). And on stage, this is even more apparent as the band get lost in their heady jams with little regard to perfect duplication of their records.
This isn’t to say they don’t sound good, but there’s a playful difference in the arrangements, a feeling of improvisation that Ollie Judge seems to conduct from behind his drums. He’s amazingly mobile given his instrument, constantly in motion around the set, messing with tempo and delivering his stream-of-consciousness diatribes sometimes with clear-eyed emotion, other times as quickly as possible to get back to jamming.
‘Swing (In A Dream)’ sets the mood well in its constructed cacophony, followed by the hard-hitting (despite its unwieldy title) ‘If You Had Seen The Bull’s Swimming Attempts You Would Have Stayed Away’. A common feature of recent shows is the informally titled ‘Leccy Jam’, where Squid let loose on the synths and indulge a bit of psychedelia without their usual bludgeoning intensity. It’s a nice way to break up the show, something that Arthur Leadbetter’s skeletal cello (skello?) also achieves.
Documentary Filmmaker is a particular highlight, the repeated lyrical refrain in sync with the krautrock arrangement, but then shattered by Laurie Nankivell’s trumpet interlude, then rebuilt again. Like the finale, ‘The Blades’, it’s a perfect illustration of the group’s ability to lock into a groove, almost to mesmeric effect, but without lengthening any jam to the point of numbing – it’s always brought back to Earth at the right moment, with a note, a beat or a shrill, seemingly innocuous lyric that seems insufficient subterfuge for a dark pain. There’s a wicked heaviness to Squid live, an oppressive talent that’s seductively easy to get lost in, as well as a free-spirited joy that can’t fail to raise a smile.