There’s a fair few gigs on in Manchester at the same time as this offering, so it’s great to see a decent crowd turning up early and eagerly for this varied bill. First up are local support Hunter & The Wolves who offer us their take on rocky alternative indie. They remind me very much of Hot Hot Heat, and quite clearly have plenty of influence from The Strokes. There’s definitely a heavy American alt-indie vibe to the songs, with the vocals in particular demonstrating that trademark swagger and drawl. The bass stomps the beat along with the drums and jangly guitars dance on top of it all. The final song is much moodier and arguably their most interesting offering.

The main tour support are Tribeless from South Wales. They set themselves up confidently and with purpose from the very first beat. Their hard modern rock is perfect for fans of Dream State and Tonight Alive, but with a much more traditional heavy rock core. In Lydia McDonald they have a dynamic vocalist that captures your attention through both her singing and stage presence. There are elements of both PJ Harvey and Katy B to her delivery, but with a raw power and passion that befits the band’s intentions. Max Rhead deserves mention as well for his forceful drumming and great backing vocals. Their set seems to build and get heavier to a full-on crescendo, by which point the crowd are fully behind the band.

I wasn’t aware of Led By Lanterns until I caught them supporting While She Sleeps at the recent Sleeps Society gig, at which they massively impressed me. They are a self-proclaimed fusion of heavy riffs with catchy boyband inspired vocal hooks, but I still argue that they are much more than the sum of those parts. Hailing from Birmingham they deliver a mix of upbeat metal instrumentals, electro backing tracks and poppy clean singing, which when put all together generates a vibrant and powerful rock package that is hyper-professional and supremely enjoyable. Fans of Siamese, YouMeAtSix, Young Guns and Normandie will adore these guys. All four members of the band are active, engaging and ooze stage presence. Importantly their live performance is as accomplished as their recorded versions, and this is no more apparent than with Shaun Hill’s lead vocals. He has powerful yet soulful vocals which layer over the top of crunching guitars, thundering bass and staccato vibrant drums. ‘Satellite’ is a perfect example of their sound, and the crowd are going wild throughout the set. As I’ve noted before, they have the skill of writing cohesive songs with memorable choruses and incite enjoyment with their own enthusiasm and big grins. The band themselves mention the delay in album release, due to the pandemic, but hopefully it’s all been a blessing in disguise and is actually good timing for them with another tour support slot with Normandie as we speak. Tribeless’ McDonald comes on to add vocals to ‘Good Enough’, and they even pull-off a great cover of Dua Lipa’s ‘New Rules’ - apparently added to their set for the previous Normandie tour when nobody knew them, but now a crowd favourite. Hill stays on to launch the encore song which is similar in start to Sleep Token’s ‘Fall For Me’ with that vocoder-type solo vocal, but then the whole band return to the stage and it powers into a rocking finale. These guys are going in the right direction, and hopefully their album gains traction and they move on to bigger and better things soon.