Review: Eagulls at Sound Control, Manchester

Image: Eagulls 

They've been touted as the best live band about, appeared on David Letterman (below) and are perhaps the nearest thing you're going to get to Manchester cult heroes Joy Division, and this weekend, high flying Leeds' outfit Eagulls rounded off their tour at cultured Manchester haunt Sound Control, thrashing out their unapologetic brand of post punk to a packed out crowd that were absolutely mad for it. 

After their heroic tirade against 'beach bands' that proclaimed Gary Numan could knock all of their dads out, alongside their faultless self titled long player (we took a scope at earlier in the year here), we couldn't wait for this one, and we weren't the only ones.

The most stereotypical Mancunian, clad in a Fred Perry polo and Hacienda satchel, approached us in the beer garden explaining how he'd played their record to 'arr kid', who wasn't having it but he himself was 'proper up for it'. Cutting a long story short, Eagulls aren't everyone's cup of tea but if you're into them, then you're fucking into them.  

It's got to be said that Sound Control have hit the nail on the head as far as live music is concerned, it's spacious yet intimate with a stripped back interior that played hand in hand with the raw energy Eagulls' resonate on stage. The audience was spread across the board, from the anarchic youth to seasoned gig revellers, attracting such a varied audience that signified word's obviously got about. 

An extended wait for the five piece to appear on stage was deceased by a sharp unacknowledged entrance that let the music do the talking, quickly progressing into an onslaught of unadulterated guitar from a yet to be released track.

All eyes were fixated on the swagger of lead singer George Mitchell, a calm and collected presence who's lairy on stage movements suggested he was completely lost in the moment throughout, only ever providing the crowd with a brief utterance between songs to reaffirm his liberated yet unquestionably cool persona. 

Stepping into more familiar territory, the band set the no holds barred precedent for the night with their pop rooted cut 'Tough Luck' (below) initiated by its jagged lo fi guitar, closely followed by the indomitable hook 'Tough Luck, Tough Luck' to which the onlooking mob of pissed off students at the front duly responded to in rampant fashion. 

No passengers were to be taken on the night with Mitchell quickly progressing into the invective refrain "I can't see it, can't feel it, can't hear it", the words to 'Yellow Eyes', the group's shrewd reprimand directed at institutionalised religion. This was followed by another venomous thrashing out of 'Nerve Endings'.

Formulating the closest thing to the mutinous seventies when punk was golden, the bass led menace 'Footsteps' summoned the aforementioned anarchic youth to the fore in riotous fashion, fabricating a frenzied mosh pit that was too continue throughout and from then on it was all guns blazing.

The suspending build up of 'Soulless Youth' administered by accompanying riffs from Mark Goldsworthy and Liam Matthews were the only cause for a breather, until even that transcended into a remorseless offensive backed by Mitchell's harrowing vocal - "Soulless, they're soulless, they're soulless inside".

The crowning glory was still to come and the spirited crowd knew it, Mitchell triggered the evening's shining moment with his most distinguishable utterance of the night; "this is our last song" which brought the defining moment of the gig into play, 'Possesed', a sublime showing of shoegaze guitar and yearning lyrics that seemingly drew air from every crevice of Mitchell's lungs. "I'm PUH-sessed".

And there it was, the initial hype was justified, Eagulls really are one of the best live bands about, and they know it, yet you get the sense that they really couldn't give a fuck. 

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