The Academy Is / The Audition / Young Love

Young Love opened the show tonight at Manchester’s Academy 2, that awkward school hall-esque venue which I usually despite with its shaking floorboards and lack of ventilation but with the closure of Academy 1, I can’t really complain about the situation. I empathised for Young Love right from the start. Opening for two successful bands must have been nerve wracking enough for the New York boys but to play to a practically rigid and dead crowd was just cringe worthy to watch.

I could tell that this was a gig for fans, and they wanted the goods straight up. No appetisers. However, with vigorous enthusiasm and some amusing robotic dance movements the set picked up a pace and the electro belter “Discotech” finally got the drunks amongst me to move. Songs that followed reminded me of a more rocky All American Rejects with a much less whiney voice. Young Love lasted 25 minutes and left the stage with thanks and smiles on their faces. I was impressed.

Next up, The Audition. Having seen the band earlier this year at a 100 capacity venue I was expecting good things from them. Opening with 'You’ve made us conscious' the band were acoustically tight and front man Danny emanated an enthralling energy into the crowd, but tonight I felt something was lacking from the rest of his band. I feel the word I am looking for here is perhaps predictable.

The Audition are a talented band, their songs are enjoyable and are easy to move along too but tonight there was no spark that I had witnessed back in January. 'Approach the bench' fuelled an almost too violent reaction from the crowd and they created the absolute no-no in gig etiquette in my opinion. They encouraged a wall of death!

Recovering from a full half hour of trying not to die amongst the 15 year olds, I was already feeling somewhat exhausted. I hoped the headliners would show on time and indeed they did.

The Academy Is look like they should be singing mundane Indie anthems. They do not. William Beckett from the start makes for an incredibly likeable lead vocalist, positioning himself as close to the crowd at all times and letting emotive sound explode from those tiny lungs of his. With a new album out 'Santi', there was always the risk of the crowd not knowing much of the new material, however this was pushed aside to make way for the old favourites that people had been eagerly anticipating. A rather shakey start occurred on vocals on 'The phrase that pays' but these were quickly disposed of and improved as the set flowed without any technical hitches. Their drummer, nicknamed 'The Butcher' is fascinating to watch delivering sharp beats and rhythms and on the whole the band gel well together.

It is obvious that years of practice and improvement have paid off. 'Checkmarks', 'Black Mamba' and 'Hollywood Hills' proved to be the hits of the night, with 'Attention Attention!' and 'Classifieds' saved for the somewhat predictable encore. Seriously, does anyone else get annoyed by that tedious "We’re going now...but we all know we’ll be right back" trick. Why not just stay on stage and save us waiting around again?

However, this small glitch aside this really was an energy fuelled gig with a great atmosphere. As anything with this genre of music, there were mosh pits and crowd surfers which I feel ruined the highs of those who were getting repeatedly kicked in the head but with the quality of the bands, I’d say it was well worth it.

'Santi' is out on 2nd April with the new single 'We’ve got a big mess on our hands.' It’s going to be a good’un kids.

FUTURE GIGS

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