The Slow Readers Club's short Winter tour rolled into their hometown of Manchester on Thursday night for a sold-out months in advance show. A mix of new songs from their forthcoming album Out Of A Dream and fan favourites from their exceptional extensive back catalogue delighted a partisan crowd.
This Manchester show is the third of a six-date UK tour which has had the sold-out signs above the doors for weeks other than their biggest ever show in Leeds on Saturday night. With two new singles, Technofear and Animals, out in the wild, it feels like the momentum that was snatched from The Slow Readers Club by COVID just as they were about to go on the road and hit the top ten album charts with The Joy Of The Return might be moving back towards them. That is if the ecstatic response of a Manchester crowd, often threatening to drown out Aaron Starkie's vocals as they sang along with songs that are now embedded as part of this era's Manchester classic guitar anthems is any reliable gauge.
The band hit the stage to the familiar tones of Donna Summer's I Feel Love and kick off with Yet Again, off their 2021 record 91 Days In Isolation, which features heavier than might be expected for a record released in the latter days of us not being able to get into a room and watch live music, but which stands as one of their career highlights. Immediately it's clear there's a punch and power to the band and with at times blinding light show they're setting their stall out to reclaim stages of this size not just in their hometown but further afield too.
The set never stands still, moving from record to record, backwards and forwards through their career from the likes of Sirens from their self-titled debut and Forever In Your Debt and I Saw A Ghost from its follow-up Cavalcade when they were still playing to a dozen or so hardy souls who believed in them and whose faces were familiarly welcoming in a room full of a hundred times more people who've hopped on the ride at various points since. All of them are directing their love towards the four men on stage, Jim Ryan's energetic bass playing that often takes the lead, Kurt Starkie's guitar work that blossoms in these bigger rooms in more revealing sound systems and David Whitworth's drumming that powers them along. Aaron Starkie stands front and centre, his voice beautifully enhancing the words that he's singing with real depth of emotion and experience that gives them both gravitas and sincerity.
The four new songs point to Out Of A Dream being one of the best records yet. The two singles - Technofear and Animals - are born in the Readers blueprint, but with a harder edge that came to the fore on parts of their last record Knowledge Freedom Power. The other two songs are more surprising. Little White Lies is tender and affecting and sees Aaron pick up an acoustic guitar, whilst Boy So Blue gets one of the best receptions of the night even though only a handful of people in the room have heard it before. More synth-based than previous work and set to a bright blue background, it might surprise some who know them for the big anthems.
Those big anthems come like buses towards the end of the set. Afterlife is glorious, the best song they've ever released to date, and the perfect showcase for Aaron's voice, You Opened Up My Heart simply soars and sets the room bouncing. Forever In Your Debt has grown from the small rooms of the city to fill this hallowed one, whilst On The TV gives the Ritz's sprung dancefloor a thorough workout. The audience sing the hook line to I Saw A Ghost over the remixed backing track extended intro at the start of the encore before letting loose once more and Lunatic finishes off the night with one last burst of anthemic energy that grabs you by the heart and the hand and transports you into the song alongside the fifteen hundred people around you.
Life is hard for bands like The Slow Readers Club these days. They're not in the cool club who seem to be embedded in the template for every festival under the sun and the necessary work that's being done with Keychange pushes them further even down the pecking order. Yet here there are in a room of fifteen hundred people hanging off their every word. For an hour and a half they deliver anthem after anthem that talk to you, your life and give you a moment of escapism surrounded by others to whom they speak to with the same language.
The Slow Readers Club played Yet Again, The Wait, Animals, Plant The Seed, All I Hear, The Greatest Escape, Lay Your Troubles On Me, Little White Lies, Sirens, All The Idols, Technofear, Afterlife, You Opened Up My Heart, Forever In Your Debt, Boy So Blue, On The TV, I Saw A Ghost, Knowledge Freedom Power and Lunatic.
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