By Jase Walker
After their absolutely bloody fantastic set at Download festival last year, The Ghost Inside last month embarked on a five date tour through the ÜK and I was lucky enough to catch them at a nice central Manchester venue, The Ritz. Along for the ride was a band I’ve been wanting to see live for a few years, Senses Fail and with them, Dragged Under. I don’t doubt it’ll be a heavy one for sure – but initial impressions for their turnout sadly don’t look as promising as the upstairs area for the venue is closed and the queue prior to doors wasn’t particularly long.
Dragged Under are kicking us off first to a sadly quite sparse turnout but hasn’t stopped quite a few people migrating from the bar to the front of the crowd to get stuck into them! They’ve obviously decided to make do and stick everything they can into it though, even if it means cracking some awful joke about the pronunciation of Manchester.
With their Rise Against-esque sound and style they’re winning over the crowd that’s turned up early to see them and I can feel the Ritz’s bouncy floor shaking under my feet along to the beat and plenty of whooping and cheering following each song.
I feel quite bad for the turnout they’ve got so far even with the steady influx of people coming in as the show moves on. You wouldn’t think it though going on how they’re performing, great sound overall and their singer is putting everything in getting people to move along with him. Definitely a fun set on the whole and eventually a busier venue by the end of it, they’ve given everything they could to it and it’s clearly paid off. Even getting a pretty sizable put going towards the end and a fairly large guy slipping and fully eating shit as well. Definitely an underrated band by many measures.
After what seemed like an extra speedy changeover, it’s time for Senses Fail to get going. Leaning more towards the old school emo sounds of yesteryear like Finch or Saves The Day, quite the contrast to what’s about to come up next but clearly have a decent amount of fans in the crowd. Frustratingly the vocals seem extremely quiet in contrast to the rest of the band so it’s often quite hard to make them out. He’s definitely one for stage antics though with doing pushups mid or bicep curls with the mic stand. The focus is very much on him throughout this show as well, with further antics of throwing his mic around like he’s mixing cocktails, rolling around the stage and trying to get between other bandmates’ legs.
Despite the energy on stage, the crowd’s overall energy still seems pretty lukewarm unfortunately which is a bit disappointing. To say Senses Fail are putting on an energetic show is a bit of an understatement but it doesn’t look like it’s being reciprocated by the crowd barring a few more enthusiastic people.
By the time The Ghost Inside are due on, the venue is looking much busier as well as them opening the upper floor finally, so it would appear that there’s been a large chunk of people buying tickets on the door. The moment they start, the until now sleepy crowd has suddenly been provoked into action as a gigantic pit opens up and several people are on shoulders before being launched over the rest of the crowd. During some brief technical issues at the start, they’ve tried making some light chatter about football which doesn’t quite seem to go over so well in a divided city such as Manchester but sorted quickly and on with the show!
In contrast to many metalcore shows I’ve seen recently where the drums have been absurdly overpowering, in this case while strong, the guitars and vocals are actually on par and it’s sounding great as well. Security certainly has their work cut out for them too, the sheer number of crowd surfers coming over the top with every song is constant. The Ghost Inside’s relentless aggression and onslaught of riffs is reciprocated by the audience sevenfold, the crowd is a sea of constant movement of waving arms, bobbing heads.”Lifes swinging hard, I’m but I’m swinging harder” they all scream for a moment before slamming into each other, you couldn’t have a more perfect metalcore prelude to chaos.
As The Ghost Inside draw their set to a close, the change in the feel of the show as it eventually filled out this venue from a worryingly sparse start, it’s clear why The Ghost Inside have such a strong following. They’ve kept the energy levels on stage at an unbelievable level through an enduring 90-something minute set, a true testament to endurance as well as showmanship. Little wonder they were able to command a slot they had at Download last year with this sort of extended pedigree.
An incredible end to a somewhat slow burn of a show in Manchester tonight: what a show, what a band.
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