By Jase Walker
Another dark, wet evening sees me heading to Manchester’s premier Academy venue, I’m here to relive my college days through an old school setlist from Welsh rockers, Funeral For A Friend. Bringing rising acts, Holding Absence and Static Dress, tonight’s going to be a showcase of post-hardcore’s oldest and newest facets.
Static Dress waste absolutely zero time going straight for the jugular with their energetic, screamy and bordering on Hardcore style. Sadly, the room isn’t exactly busy at this point which probably points towards your average FFAF fan not quite being aware of them by this point, but they’re definitely putting the work in to expose their music to newer audiences.
The overall sound is a little bit distorted, although that doesn’t seem to impact the enjoyment of the crowd closer to the front who are clearly into them. It’s fantastic however, seeing a band like Static Dress, who not so long ago were a small opening act to a show I saw at Manchester’s Rebellion venue and they’re acting like they own the place so they’ve clearly honed their craft over the years. Partway through they’re blasting out a song that reminds me a lot of 36 Crazyfists amongst other older post-hardcore giants, they’ve clearly taken a lot from those who came before and added into their sound – on the whole, great show, a solid variety and hopefully they’ve made some new fans tonight.
Next up tonight is Holding Absence, who have been causing some pretty strong waves throughout the past few years and seeing them support FFAF is a perfect support slot for them. A strong opener with the anthemic ‘Celebration Song’ and a clearly engaged audience before me waving their arms about right from the start. Seeing these guys on a stage if this size is fantastic, with the amount of work they’ve been putting in to build their following, it’s very much deserved and they’re clearly enthralled to be up there!
Honestly, I’ve been pretty hypnotized by the show so far, coming in with ‘Beyond Belief’ and it’s super ‘80s Smiths-eqsue vibe having the crowd hanging on every word and singing it straight back to the guys on stage twice as loud, especially with the ‘God only knows’ phrase! Holding Absence demonstrates with every passing song why they’ve gotten so popular with their poppy sound and spectacular stage show – a very honest performance that feels like they’re not just playing the music but roping the audience as part of the performance as well.
Towards the end of the set, another favourite of mine, ‘Afterlife’ and as you’d probably expect with Holding Absence, a catchy chorus really gets its claws into you but singing along you might struggle a bit to match their singer’s pitch. The band’s clearly comfortable on a stage this size and commanding a now-packed room like it’s just a natural thing for them. Holding Absence are definitely on the right track to big things and more power to them, they’re sublime at their craft.
The venue, now absolutely packed, erupts into screams as Funeral For A Friend take the stage, no spoken intro, just straight into it. The Welsh post-hardcore titans giving Manchester the send off it deserves. The set which is apparently based around the first three albums takes me straight back to the early 2000s during my college days and seeing them on the main stage of Leeds Festival. I can’t believe the second song in is ‘Juneau’ – I thought this would be way back in the set! The whole audience singing in unison “Am I nothing more, than a line in your book?”; beautiful.
Another oldie, ‘Bullet Theory’, really pulling out the big ones from their first album, excellent! Despite how long ago these albums were released, the songs have aged gracefully and still bangers that would hold up to any new bands of today!
Shows like this with bands that have had careers that go back as long as FFAF tend to have crowds of the hardcore fans that have been listening to them since the start and everyone here is no different. Even on songs where I’m a bit less familiar with the words, the audience is singing back almost every word for every song they’re playing, what a sight. The pit’s been in full swing for a while now and showing no signs of stopping, it’s been almost the same people for about five songs straight now!
Still going for first album stuff, and the crowd seems to be a little out of time with their ‘Waaoohhh’ during ‘She Drove Me To Daytime TV’, this comes fairly soon after the singer giving people a tongue in cheek warning about singing along out of time also which is pretty amusing. No sooner are we through that, it’s time for ‘Escape Artists Never Die’, yet another first album classic. The focus on their first album stuff makes me feel like I could be back seeing them at Leeds all those years ago.
Again, another spectacular gig and 2022 so far has actually been pretty good, I hope this continues long into the year, there’s so much more to come!
The tour continues:
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