Reviews

Performance

It’s also where they start the set, with a full force Market Street that explodes them out of the musical blocks and surges them into 45 minutes of underlining why they are one of Manchester’s finest bands.

Not that it was without its problems, mainly due to unpredictable levels forcing first Jo Cross’ bass and then Laura Marsden’s guitar out over the top of the mix.

Yet it’s a testament to the growing up the band has done since they first rattled cages in Manchester that instead of letting it colour their performance, they simply ran rough-shod across it, producing danceably epic takes on Vandals and Dotted Line, before full-stopping the whole thing with their mighty electro mashing of Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ and the finest bit of pop to come out of Manchester last year, the dazzling Short Sharp Shock.

For all the enhanced tunes though, what makes them a fantastic live band is the unstoppable Joe Stretch. From his beating of the ceiling to his face-rubbing attempts to contain his energy between songs, he was like a short-wired son of the legendary Ian Curtis, all intense action and angular moves.

If things moved past them before, those days are gone. Performance have their foot firmly back on the accelerator and are ready to hurtle past those that have stolen their rightful place in the Mancunian hierarchy, and while that may have been the slogan that met the audience on the way in, the one they leave with is quite different: the future starts here.