Advertised as their "first final reunion show" Mold made a one-off return to the live stage on Friday night headlining the monthly Entertainment Club "Multi-Genre Hell Cabaret" event in the beautiful theatre of the Kings Arms in Salford.
Our host's house band Wondrous Planet open the evening, starting with four of them on-stage, led, we think, as no one introduces themselves by Jim John Harkness. They're intriguing, a little off the wall, but never anything less than entertaining as you're glued to what might happen next. A sax player careers through the audience that starts seated but stands as the set progresses, threatening to take anyone out in their path, there's a flute player, or it might be a recorder, the smoke and hazy lights don't allow us to see and a drummer. Then there's our host, dead centre, one minute sat on the floor, reading repeated lines from a poetry book sounding like a Northern English Nick Cave, the next in the face of one of the audience, covering himself in baby oil to be touched by people wearing rubber gloves that have been handed out and finally confronted by a man covered in pink mesh and what looks like a piece of toast attached to their head. Some of them return later for an improvised piece where audience members are encouraged to join in, which appears to be the spirit of the monthly event from which they're deviating tonight with the appearance of two bands.
The first are Yossari Baby, formerly known as The Yossarians, a collective fronted by Tim Schiazza that have been around the Manchester and Salford scene in a variety of line-ups for a few years now. Their current line-up, for tonight at least, is a three-piece with two vocalists, live guitar and a backing track. The songs are predominantly driven by those backing tracks, big pulsating beats that get the crowd more animated and moving around. We've never heard them before but we're drawn in by the energy in the performance as are most of those around us as Tim and his vocal partner, wearing a bright yellow wig, share lead duties. They play songs they tell us are coming from their forthcoming album as well as their scathing assault on Prince Andrew entitled Where Does All The Sweat Go? to a rapturous response worthy of a headliner (which they're playing this Wednesday at Soup Kitchen).
The room's full for Mold, a band we chanced upon at Psych Fest back in 2018 and then lost track of. Down to a trio tonight, they deliver a glorious forty-minute set that never pauses for breath, songs melting into each other as if they were either one long piece with many sections or twenty two-minute mini cyclones, the calls for an encore dismissed by "we've given you a five-song medley as an encore already". Impeccably tight, astonishingly so given this is their first gig in a couple of years, with the most beautiful vocal harmonies from Dan and Shane who interchange, switch and combine throughout, they don't say much, they don't introduce the songs, or themselves, they just play. A mosh pit ensues towards the end as the crowd are pulled inextricably towards them and into the experience, a melting pool of influences drawn together into something that feels thrilling, exciting and which leaves us a little bit sad at the end if this is really a one-off.
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