Metronomy, having just released their fourth album ‘Love Letters’, made their way to Manchester on Friday night for a gig at the Ritz the third date of their extensive European tour. Lead singer Joe Mount says it’s “one of the fanciest venues we’ve ever played” which is surely an unbelievable overstatement. The Ritz Manchester is like The Ritz London in name only, maybe he was deceived by the nicely painted balcony and jazzy disco ball. Despite his misguided opinions of the venue, it really was an excellent night.
Only support to Metronomy was The Proper Ornaments, a London rock band without a twitter page so we’re already off to a bad start. This is 2014, the age of social media, and you can’t even be bothered to make a twitter page and promote your band? Sorry, you need to try harder. Unfortunately I wasn’t really impressed by the music either, the aim was clearly for Pavement influenced slacker rock but it was just a bit too lazy – boring bass lines and uninteresting guitar solos really didn’t get me in the mood to boogie. The only part I enjoyed was the Django Django-esque vocals with interesting harmonies, but I feel that might not have been on purpose.
Luckily half an hour later Metronomy arrive, all sporting matching suits previously seen in the video for ‘Love Letters’ and they looked absolutely dashing. They begin with ‘Monstrous’ with Joe Mount’s heart-wrenching vocals, followed by a slightly more upbeat ‘Month of Sundays’ giving the crowd time to listen intently before a raucous sing-a-long to ‘Love Letters’. Metronomy have got some new hi-tech gear since the last time I saw them at the NME Awards Tour 2012 – flashing multi-coloured lights and light-up keyboards and synths really get the crowd dancing. The crowd is a real mix of ages meaning you get to be amongst teens jumping up and down excitedly and old men bopping along to new instrumental tracks like ‘Boy Racers’ and ‘Side 2’, that variety makes for a great gig I think. Clearly electronic music never goes out of style.
The setlist is mainly comprised of their two most recent and most successful albums with a few songs from their second album ‘Nights Out’. No one is surprised by the decision to not include anything from their debut ‘Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 You Owe)’. The set ends with a vibrant version of ‘The Bay’ and leaves everyone hyped up enough to shout “More more more!” and stamp their feet for an encore. After a few minutes a spotlight appears on the middle of the stage and Joe appears to begin ‘Some Written’ which builds up as the rest of the band come on individually to loud cheers and rounds of applause – an especially loud one for the bass player Olugbenga Adelekan who is easily the most energetic member on stage with his funky dance moves and his obvious passion for the music he’s playing. Metronomy round off the night with the classic ‘Heartbreaker’ (my favourite Metronomy song) and the sincere and melancholy ‘The Most Immaculate Haircut’ – personally I’d have swapped the last two but no-one’s perfect, although tonight Metronomy have shown they’re not far from it.
Elli Brazzill
