The Mercury-prize winning success of This Could Be Texas has catapulted English Teacher from the grassroots venues of which they are such ardent champions to selling out venues like The Ritz at the drop of a hat. With that comes the challenges of entertaining a curious audience eager to see whether that accolade was justified (note - it is) and how they cut it live. Support came from TSSFU and Westside Cowboy.
Westside Cowboy are a fascinating bunch. The Manchester-based four-piece, with just one single to their name describe themselves at Britanicana and spell their name differently on Facebook to Spotify. Quite what that means isn't any clearer by the end of their brilliant half-hour set that has a crowd that we'd wager 99.9% had never heard of before eating out of the palm of their hands. Starting with a wild instrumental, they then move through songs where the front three interchange lead vocals, through moments of quiet introspection to full-on wig outs, often adjacent to each other in the same song. It could be a recipe for disaster and go horribly wrong, but it doesn't as they take the audience on their journey with them. Their single I've Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love (Until I Met You) is a great starting point for them, but their journey will be a fascinating one if you hop on board now.
TTSSFU is one of a number of exciting talents emerging from Manchester right now. Tasmin has put together a band that captures the essence of her songs about friendship, unrequited crushes and the desire to commit murder. With a striking heart shaped guitar these songs, taken mostly from the recent debut EP Me, Jed And Andy, hit the mark with a now pretty much full to capacity Ritz. There's been a lot of fevered talk about TTSSFU from friends who've seen them in basement venues around town, but this translates perfectly to the big stage. Tasmin's vocals fill the room and the strength of the songs allows them to expand to do the same. It wouldn't be too much of an extrapolation to see them headlining here in their own right within the next couple of years.
English Teacher make to the stage with a huge roar from the expectant Manchester crowd. Technical issues with a guitar almost derail the start but as they jump straight into R&B, one of This Could Be Texas's standout singles, that's forgotten. Their setlist choices are brave ones. It would be easy for them to come and play for an hour, as many of their contemporaries with just one album in their pocket might do, but they're on stage for an hour and a half performing the whole of This Could Be Texas, four of the five tracks from their Polyawkward EP, the standalone single Song About Love and a new song called Billboards.
But they don't and that poses challenges in keeping an audience's attention. However, impressively and surprisingly given modern gig culture, they mostly succeed save for a gobby gammon and a group of women talking about some bloke one of them met online until they play the songs they know. The rest of the audience stand in admiration and attention when the middle of the set around Mastermind Specialism, You Blister My Paint, This Could Be Texas and The Best Tears Of Your Life as well as impressive new song Billboards take on some of their more intimate moments.
Lily at the helm is a front woman it's easy to warm to. When she talks of one of her first gigs here aged 14, queuing up for an hour to get to the barrier for The Kooks and almost passing out because she didn't drink enough, it connects with those who love music and who have similar experiences in their past (some more dim and distant than others in an audience that ranges from teens to sixties). There's no scripted talk between songs that you hear from most artists, here we have genuine joy and wonder. There's still a sense of wonder at just how quickly things have developed for them in the past year, indeed the main set's final song Albert Road laments at how things don't happen for people like them from the Pendle area where they formed. However when they play The World's Biggest Paving Slab and Nearly Daffodils towards the end of the set, it all makes perfect sense.
They finish with crowd favourite Good Grief from their Polyawkward EP as the single track in the encore before they stand in front of fifteen hundred people who've been utterly charmed by them for ninety minutes. The Mercury Prize win may have accelerated their pathway to venues like this (the show was originally scheduled for Gorilla across the road with a thousand less people), but at no point does it feel too soon or unwarranted.
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