It’s been a long time since we’ve been genuinely excited about the possibilities of a new band. COVID killed a lot of nascent bands stone dead as they couldn’t get into a room together and only now is the scene starting to fully recover. A couple of weeks ago, we were in The Ritz early for the English Teacher headline and the opening band Westside Cowboy struck as one to find out more about. They’re Manchester-based and had their own headline show for their debut single launch at The Castle Hotel. So here we are two weeks later.
Opening up are All Girls Arson Club. The two-piece, Alice on guitar, India on drums, have been around for a number of years now but this is the first time we’ve seen them. They rattle through about a dozen songs based heavily around TV shows and life in the Fallowfield / Didsbury corridor. They seem nervous at first, throwing glances at each other to remind themselves who and how they start songs off, perhaps wary of the full room staring at them expectantly. They blossom though as the set progresses, growing in confidence and with their stronger songs towards the end of the set. We’re told by Alice that we’re not allowed to slag them off on the internet because they work for the NHS and a mental health charity but the roar of the crowd hopefully tells them there’ll be no such issue.
The Castle’s music room is too small for the size and scale of Westside Cowboy’s musical ambition and the size of their sound. Gulliver’s, where they’ve booked their next headline show for March, probably already is too. The four-piece may only have been going for a year, and “formed as a joke” one of them tells us before the show, but they have the potential to play on the city’s biggest stages and further afield.
They’re made up of Aoife (bass, vocals), James (guitar, vocals), Reuben (guitar, vocals) and Paddy (drums, vocals) and you could easily envisage each of them fronting a band in their own right, such is the breadth of musical talent on display here. They know how to play, the subtlety in the guitar playing, the range of the vocals from hushed tender introspection or delicious harmonies to full-on four vocal onslaughts and the frankly phenomenal drumming mean that Westside Cowboy sound like a band several albums into their career without ever losing the thrill of being at the start of a journey that could take them a long way.
They have the songs too to back up their craft. Their single I’ve Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love is just a taster of what they’ve got in their locker. Equally at home going full throttle as they are with everything dropping down to just a solitary vocal, they grab you instantly and take you on the ride with them. Not for them the verse, chorus, verse, chorus, break, chorus mundanity of the majority, these songs are vibrant, taking unexpected turns and with a restlessness that makes them exciting and unpredictable.
They finish the set in the audience, Paddy with one piece of the drum kit in his hand, harmonising like a traditional folk band. The crowd demand an encore, Reuben tells us they have no more songs, but they’re persuaded, against their aim of never playing an encore, to reprise I’ve Never Met Anyone… and there’s suddenly a moshpit that threatens to put the floor through as water drips from the ceiling of the swelteringly hot room.
We leave exhilarated at what we’ve witnessed. Westside Cowboy are a band still in their formative phase but who seem ready for big rooms already, delivering a forty-minute set that never drops in intensity or quality, as is often the case with new bands still learning their craft and stage presence, other than a few minor technical issues. It’s a long time since a new band has thrilled and excited us this much.
Westside Cowboy's website can be found here and they are on Facebook, X and Instagram. They headline Manchester Gullivers on March 27th.
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