Beatsteaks, Manchester Academy
Despite RX Bandits headlining the Corporation in my home city, the lure of Germany’s finest rock band, The Beatsteaks was just too much to resist. And so I found myself travelling all the way to deepest, darkest Manchester to witness their particular brand of European punk rock. I arrived to a Manchester looking not unlike a set of Waterworld as the rain poured and the wind swirled, and so refuge was taken in a nearby Wetherspoons style establishment to prepare for the evening ahead.
And then, to the Academy! To find that there would be only one support band for this evenings gig. First things first, why? There must be hundreds of bands around the country who would have killed to play with the Beatsteaks on a Saturday night in Manchester. Still, local boys ECHOFREDDY had been afforded the honour of the opening slot and they strode onto the stage to greet their feverish following. Points were immediately awarded for the fact that the bassist was wearing a Punktastic T shirt (good lad), but ultimately, Echofreddy disappointed me immensely. Granted, I had been warned before hand that they were poppy to the max, but all I could think was that every song sounded unnervingly similar and that the Ataris vibe was a little too prominent throughout. Granted, I tapped my foot throughout the set, and the vocalist had an extremely strong, if not a little generic, vocal sound, not to mention the bassist playing what looked like some imaginative basslines (I wouldn’t know for sure, though, due to the fact that I couldn’t hear the bass at all), but ultimately, their set melted slowly into one big pop punk filled half hour. Maybe if they’d shown a little more enthusiasm, this could have improved their performance, but the occasional pop punk star jump or what have you does not make an impressive stage presence. Yet again, another local support band fails narrowly to take a big opportunity by the scruff of the neck (6)
Still, it was pretty obvious that THE BEATSTEAKS weren’t going to let us down. Kicking off proceedings with ‘Big Attack’, the opener from the new album, Epitaph’s best kept secrets never failed to raise a smile as they blasted through anthem after anthem after motherfucking anthem. Ok, so it took until Arnim left the stage and ploughed into the middle of the assembled fans at the front of the stage for the energy to really start flowing, but from that point on, it was frankly glorious. They apologised for their shoddy English, they partook in a number of remotely homoerotic ‘dance moves’ while rocking out, they pulled off a fantastic Nirvana cover and randomly jammed to Misfits songs, they got a blatantly drunk bloke from the bar to play drums on their cover of Manowar’s Kings of Metal’ before cutting it short because, as they put it, ‘its boring! It’s just fucking boring’ and to top it all off, Arnim ascended the speaker stack before somersaulting majestically into the crowd. As well as all this, they pulled off fantastic renditions of their greatest songs, including a rousing ‘Panic’, a crowd pleasing ‘We Have To Figure It Out Tonight’ and arguably their best song, ‘Let Me In’. In fact, anyone who denies getting goosebumps during the latter songs ‘fade out – explode in’ interlude is a downright liar. Put simply, they were magnificent. While kids lap up stream after stream of identikit American pop nonsense, there’s one of the worlds greatest live bands merely a few countries away plying some of the most enjoyable, tuneful and imaginative music around at the moment. Born showmen and with the songs to boot, The Beatsteaks demand your respect. (9.5)
Actually, I take back what I said about support bands before hand. There’s not a band in the damn country that could live up to the show the Beatsteaks put on.
Ross
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