Tucked away under the railway arches opposite Manchester's Oxford Road railway station is Gorilla; despite the name there's no sign of the large primates inside or even a jungle theme. What we get instead is a wide stage (always the best for views) with a wall of electrical switch boxes, all gauges and on/off lights behind the band.
If those gauges and lights were still connected they would have flicked on the second The New Pornographers take to the stage , they start as does the most recent album, with 'Brill Bruisers',“.. Bo, baa, ba, ba ,boo, “ six of the seven members of the Canadian (mostly) supergroup contributing to a huge wall of vocals, including for the first time in the UK with the Pornographers secondary songwriter Dan Bejar “this guy usually stays at home concentrating on his poetry” according to Carl Newman who writes the majority of The New Pornographers' tunes.
Dan appears and disappears from the stage as and when his vocals are required so we get a lot of his tracks tonight, 'Myriad Harbour' from 'Challengers', 'War on the East Coast' and 'Testament to Youth in Verse' with its huge sing along “ The bells ring no,no,no,no,no,...”.
'Dancehall Domine' from 'Brill Bruisers' the track you may have heard on 6 Music (a rare event) in the past couple of months appears to have enticed several punters out tonight. There's also a great version of 'Born with a Sound' from the same album with Kathryn Calder and Dan swapping vocal lines. The keyboard and electronic fills present on the new album are somewhat swamped by the guitar-heavy live band but that doesn't stop the newer tracks getting a positive reaction from the crowd.
As this is the first show of a short European tour the effects of jet lag are still evident, Carl recounts how he spent yesterday wandering around Manchester's city centre waiting for his hotel's check-in time .. “found Selfridges... nice store, got kicked out real quick..” They finish the main set with a rocking version of 'Mass Romantic' from their first album with Kathryn taking lead vocal, “Thanks for coming to a rock and roll show”.
Encores are 'Jackie' with Dan back on vocals and two tracks from 'Twin Cinema' (my personal favourite TNP album) , 'Sing Me Spanish Techno' and 'The Bleeding Heart Show'. If you could harness the energy of twenty two tracks of joyful, big chorus, sing along power pop delivered in seventy five minutes you would have really seen those gauges twitching with some serious wattage tonight.
Alisdair Whyte
