LIINES made their long-awaited return to the stage on Thursday night with a sold-out co-headline show with Polish trio Trupa Trupa who were on a short European tour. With Tamsin temporarily back with them on bass, they mixed new songs with tracks from their debut Stop / Start to an enthusiastic and supportive crowd after Trupa Trupa had impressed a curious crowd and Vincent's Last Summer had provided an enthusiastic opening to the evening.
Vincent's Last Summer have been making a name for themselves recently with shows around Manchester and further belong on festivals and their own headlines in support of their debut EP Get Rich Quick that came out in the summer. The core duo James and Tommy lead the expanded four-piece through a very energetic opening set, sharing vocals at points whilst letting loose at any given opportunity in the songs. They've got a red telephone that calls them with news from 2008 at points in the set including the news that Manchester United have just become Champions again which seems a little strange and detracts a little from their music. They get a very warm response from the crowd, impressed by the energy on stage and the directness of their sound.
This is one of three shows Trupa Trupa are playing the UK alongside a 6 Music Session. In interviews they've said they're bigger here than they are back home in their native Gdansk in Poland. Their songs are based around front man Grzegorz's poetry which often touches on controversial subjects like the holocaust and they're delivered with a mix of sparse jagged instrumentation that's reminiscent of a number of this city's most famous exports as well as some complex guitar that Gulliver's sound man does exceptionally well to allow us to hear and appreciate fully.
The crowd move forward and fill out for LIINES' set that finishes the evening. It's eight months since they stepped on a stage in Manchester and they've got Tamsin back with them on bass for the first time in a number of years since she departed to focus on her Vice Vera project. It's like she's never been away though as the three of them reprise that intuitive connection they had for a number of years. Lots of little reassuring smiles turn to beaming grins by the end of the night.
Their set mixes tracks from their debut Stop/Start with old favourites like Never There (still one of our favourite songs ever from Manchester), Never Wanted This, Be Here, Disappear and Blackout with a batch of later singles - On And On, Sorry, Keep On Going and this year's return Holding On - and tracks written more recently but yet still unreleased because of the challenges of affording recording and releasing albums that many bands are facing. Many of them have already become fan favourites as they fit in perfectly alongside the more familiar songs.
The attraction to LIINES is in their raw energy and honesty in their performances. Zoe tells us the gig nearly didn't happen because of issues she's been having and the room offers her a comfort blanket of support and understanding. Leila's drumming is ferociously powerful and you see from the look on her face she's giving it absolutely everything throughout, lost in the music and pushing herself to the limits. Tamsin makes the bass look easy even though she's not played with them for several years.
It's exactly ten years to the day as we write this that we first saw LIINES perform in this very room to half a dozen people, brought along by the sadly missed John Hall. It took ten seconds of them playing to realise that they're something special. They still are, we all may be older and maybe wiser, but there's something about the music they create that makes the world a better place, an escape from the relentless pressure of life for the three minutes of a song and a reminder that everyone's got their own issues and no one is alone.
LIINES' official website can be found here. They are also on Twitter and Facebook
Trupa Trupa's website can be found here and they are on Facebook and Twitter.
Vincent's Last Summer are on Facebook and Twitter.
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