Monday 23 January 2017

Carnival Club / Kashmere / Crimsons - Manchester Soup Kitchen - 21st January 2017



Saturday afternoon and night saw the first Lucoo all-dayer in Soup Kitchen with eight bands on the bill. Due to other commitments we were only able to catch three in the early evening, but with Carnival Club, Kashmere and Crimsons, we struck lucky.

Carnival Club are the first of the three bands we catch and the main reason we're here. They are undoubtedly, alongside Matter Of Mind, right at the front of the city's youthful resurgence in guitar music. Their Magdalena's Cape EP is the single most powerful statement we've heard from a new band in a very very long time. Their exuberant swagger is curtailed slightly by them not yet realising just how good they are. Not that it matters at all when they strike up recent lead single House Of Cards or the EP's title track and they lose themselves in a sound that's so powerful that it threatens to overwhelm the basement of Soup Kitchen.

The way they make things look so effortless merely heightens the impact. When guitarist Eddie lets loose in the middle of Headache jaws drop; this is rock and roll at its most powerful, most invigorating and exciting and, most importantly perhaps, it talks to us oldies at the back and the kids down the front. Front man Kai has that cool as fuck swagger with guitar in hand at the mic that's already starting to blossom into a assured confidence. With a fair wind, Carnival Club are going to be a very very big deal.


It's a hard act for Kashmere to follow but they give it a good go. Recent single Porcelain is an anthemic call to arms that takes no prisoners and that ethos runs through their set and the impact doesn't subside at all across the eight songs they play. Wax Poetic and the set-closing duo of Make Love and Blow Your Mind are the other highlights in a bruising rock and roll set that doesn't forget the need for a killer hook to grab and hold the audience's attention.


Crimsons are a different beast altogether, songs full of huge powerful riffs and strutting assured cool. There's a danger that might be construed as arrogance but the fire and power of what they're creating will leave you forgiving them that indulgence. There's an intuitive groove to most of what they do, especially recent single Idle Ways, that you get when bands are fully atuned to each other and when they make the brave move of putting their own mark on the standard I Just Wanna Make Love To You, they create a sexual tension that hangs in the air off every note. Pictures Of Pictures and Born On A Different Day in particular are equally imposing in their impact and the rousing reaction they get at the end tells its own story.

Carnival Club are on Facebook and Twitter.

Kashmere are on Facebook and Twitter.

Crimsons are on Facebook and Twitter.
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