jollyrockmusic-blog

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Airbourne @ Manchester Academy - Tuesday 14th November 2017

It feels weird calling “Breaking Out Of Hell” Airbourne’s ‘New Album’, as it’s been out in the public domain since June 2016, and the band have been touring more or less non-stop for 18 months promoting it. But myself and my three amigos could not miss the opportunity to see Airbourne again for the fourth time on this tour.

You know what you’re going to get with Airbourne – the Australian quartet has been rocking the world with their AC/DC influenced rock and roll since 2003. Tonight’s venue – Manchester Academy 1. A step up for Airbourne in Manchester, as their last couple of shows here have been in a packed out Ritz – tonight will give them around 1000 extra fans to entertain.

In support tonight are The Wild, hailing from Canada, as well as Phil Campbell (from Motorhead fame) and the Bastard Sons. “Are we bothering with the support tonight then?” came the text into the group thread from ever present Dave, responses included “I’m Not!” and “Not arsed”, therefore trips to Grand Central and The Salisbury Alehouse (two of my personal favourite drinking holes in Manchester) were in order. 9:30pm was the designated start time, so we had plenty of time for plenty of beer.

Question for you. “How many grams in a kilogram” – Not “100” as we drunkenly answered to send us out of the first round of ‘1vs100’on the quiz machine in the Salisbury. It was at this point that we decided that we should set off to see the show.

The familiar sight of Marshall Amps stacked on stage is a kindly reminder that my eardrums were about to begin bleeding. The large backdrop screams AIRBOURNE, the cover of their 3rd studio album ‘Black Dog Barking’ emblazoned below. The room at the Academy was around 80% full, which suggests that the band have chosen the correct time to upgrade venues.  I have never seen the film “Terminator 2” – but thanks to Airbourne I do know one of the songs from soundtrack – as they always come out onto the stage to the theme song.

You’d expect a band which had been on the road for the best part of two years to be a little tired coming into the final stretch of their tour, but front man Joel O’Keefe is an unstoppable engine. He may have reigned in his vocal screeching in the past couple of years, but the passion oozes out of him as he gallops around the stage with his trusty white Gibson Explorer. The very aptly named opening number “Ready To Rock” whips the audience into an early frenzy.

On the opening riff of new-ish song “I’m Going To Hell For This” the old backdrop is ripped down from the back of the stage to reveal the ghoulish artwork for “Breaking Outta Hell”, featuring a skinless Joel O’Keefe (think Robbie Williams in the music video for “Rock DJ”, just with more actual rock!) The sound is really tight, you certainly don’t realise that the rhythm guitarist Harri Harrison has only been with the band for a few months, replacing David Roads over the summer.

The band blast through a few songs from the new album, songs which are met with the same enthusiasm from the energetic Manchester crowd. The next song was dedicated to all the girls in the audience dressed in black, called “Girls In Black” and it is during this song that O’Keefe begins his off stage antics. In the early years of Airbourne he used to get away with climbing up the scaffolding at the side of the stage. Something I witnessed at Sonisphere 2011 – there was nothing more shocking, exciting or scary than seeing the man climb to the roof of the stage, then begin thrashing away on his guitar, especially in the English weather! However, as time and health and safety regulations have gone on, Mr O’Keefe has had to reign in his performance. Tonight he climbs onto his security guards shoulders and is walked through the crowd, riffing away all the time. When he gets right into the middle of the crowd he performs his next party trick – smashing a beer over his head over and over until it sprays him and all of the fans around him in premium Aussie lager. He is then returned to the stage by the now piss wet through security guard to finish the song.

The first single off the new-ish album - “It’s All For Rock and Roll” – was written in the memory of metal legend, Lemmy, who died in December 2015. Nearly two years down the line and the metal community is still in mourning. A few thousand plastic glasses are thrust in the air in memoriam, as the band lead the tribute in the only way Lemmy would have wanted them to – Jack Daniels whiskey.

If I have one complaint to make, it’s that the band only play 13 songs, and the main set is over quickly, leaving the audience hungry for more. A recent staple of the setlist comes next though, as drummer Ryan O’Keefe heads to the front of the stage to manually operate an air raid siren warning the audience of the incoming song “Live It Up”. The band finish up their encore, and head off to finish their final handful of dates before enjoying a well deserved break. Meanwhile, I was left looking forward to my hangover at work the following day...

[jollyrockmusic-blog]

Weezer @ Manchester Apollo - Wed 25th October 2017

“For fucks sake!” This was my fellow concert goer Dave’s response to checking the train times for our upcoming journey to Manchester. We had already come to accept the fact that we were set for a 90 minute bus replacement service after the concert, but a half an hour delay on the way out was not ideal. However, there was another train we could catch – it left the station in 3 minutes. We both downed the rest of our drinks, and bolted for the nearby platform. We made it by mere seconds, and thus the journey to the O2 Apollo began.

On tonight’s agenda – Weezer. A rock band formed in the 1990’s in Los Angeles, California, in what would be only their 2nd performance in Manchester since 2005. Me and Dave would both agree that this will probably the ‘softest’ performance that we would ever attend together. But as he considered “The Green Album” as being in his top 20 albums of all time, and I seem to remember that their performance at Sonisphere Festival 2011 was top notch (despite being hugely intoxicated) – we were eager to see them perform again.

In support were The Orwells, “something to do with George Orwell” as Dave correctly spouted, a punk rock five-piece from Chicago. After listening to a few of their songs beforehand, we weren’t convinced, so we used this time to have a few more beers at the Apsley Cottage Inn round the corner from the venue.

An unusually early start time of 8:45pm soon came around, so we rushed to finish the final few mouth fulls of amber nectar, before darting down the road to the Apollo. Ignoring the offers of “Standing or Seated” tickets from the numerous touts outside – the Apollo is literally in the arse-end of nowhere, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a bloody ticket!

Anyhow, through a quick scan and search at the doors and through into the foyer. Knowing how bad we both were at holding our beer, me and Dave decided to head to the right hand side of the standing area, nearest to the toilets – only to be stopped at the entrance to check our tickets. As I am a lover in saving all of my concert tickets, I sailed straight through. Dave on the other hand sheepishly admitted that he had “put mine in the bin” and hurried back to search through the rubbish to find it.

Finally the lights went down, and the recorded intro to “California Kids” teased the audience as the band hit the stage. Eccentric front man Rivers Cuomo limps from the shadows at the back of the stage, much like Willy Wonka does at the start of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. However there is no inspiring forward roll from Rivers, instead he pulled his guitar strap over his bowl cut, adjusted his glasses and crawled his way into “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here”. A song from the triple-platinum awarded “Blue Album” that hasn’t been played by Weezer live since 2015. This caught us a bit off guard – me and Dave are avid Setlist.FM followers, and this was a complete curveball. I used this opportunity to use the aforementioned toilets and purchase another beer at the suddenly empty bar.

The band played their way nonchalantly through the opening few songs, the quartet barely breaking a sweat through the slow tempos of “The Good Life” and “No-One Else”.  The audience behind the first 10 rows of diehard fans were struggling to engage with the slow, melodic start to the show. I heard one person exclaim how “dull” it was, and the volume of the conversations of the people around us began to drown out the music coming from the stage. However, having seen the hit and miss reaction to the 1996 album ‘Pinkerton’, it wasn’t surprising to hear this during the lead single on this album, ‘El Scorcho’.

The opening doodle to fan favourite ‘Surf Wax America’ brings the whole room to life, every person in here is “going surfing”, followed up quickly with the Grammy award winning “Pork and Beans” the audience had suddenly found its voice. And what a voice! This was the loudest crowd I have ever heard at a concert by far. Me and Dave often worry about singing along at concerts, as we make up 90% of the words that we sing – but there was no cause for concern here. The audience were out singing the band through the choruses of their biggest hits and our missing lyrics were lost amongst a sea of happy voices.

Weezer are touring the UK in support of their new album “Pacific Daydream”, a concept album where the singles have been met with mixed reviews. This album has definitely been created with a more alt-rock vibe, which is hugely present in the next song “Happy Hour” which did see a large percentage of the crowd head to the bar/toilet. This is something I see at every show I attend – new songs = time for a piss. It was happy hour for us two as well, as we took advantage of the 2 for 1 drinks offer with O2, as our excellent singing had left us rather parched. It must be said though, that no matter which style of music Weezer perform, they are well and truly on point – they are a well oiled machine. There’s no fireworks, there’s no bells or whistles. Just 4 talented musicians, on a stage, with a huge flashing W behind them.

We reach the “Greatest Hits” section of the show, and this is where the crowd really came into their own during fan favourites “My Name Is Jonas”, “The Sweater Song” and “Hash Pipe” during which Mr Cuomo released a perfect impression of Manchester icon Liam Gallagher – not forgetting a cool solo snippet of Mike Posner’s “I Took A Pill In Ibiza”, before a roaring rendition of “Island In The Sun” brought the house down. The end of a set that started off slowly came much too quickly, with the band simply walking off the stage to a rousing rendition.

Chants of “Weezer” and “Manchester La, La, La” coaxed the boys back onto the stage for another song. Due to the early start, we actually managed to stick around to watch the encore, and they saved a personal favourite for last. The audience again drowned out the band during “Buddy Holly” and I once again found myself wondering who the hell Mary Tyler Moore was. Confetti rained down during the final chorus, as the cleaners waiting in the wings sobbed quietly to themselves.

“I’m not buying a cheap knock off t-shirt tonight” Dave promised me as we filed out of the building, and then spent 5 minutes ogling the selection laid out by the side of the front doors. To be fair he stuck to his word once I’d dragged him away, and we even managed to bag a lift home from an old friend we met, saving us 90 minutes of bus replacement hell.