Manchester’s Cleargreen made the journey to North London’s Nambucca for This Feeling’s 13th birthday this past Saturday. Man alive it was something to treasure!
Some bands will strive for years to deliver a set like this. The attitude, the heart, and, quality outshone nearly all established acts of the moment.
Everything culminated on their cover of Jorja Smith’s ‘Blue Lights’. The contrasting vocal styles of Ali Staley and Liam McIver were joyous. McIver’s, fired up by the injustice received by his friend, delivered a truly menacing performance! This was perfectly offset by frontman Ali Staley’s embracing and inviting vocals. Throw in Josh Howarth’s stunning and destructive guitar solo and it was hard to define this as anything other than special.
There were lighter moments of the set, notably on the ‘Mersey Paradise’ inspired ‘(To Be Understood) In My Paradise. The Squire-esque guitars jangled away with inescapable infectiousness. Meanwhile, Staley announced himself as the next great rock n roll frontman. Whilst all around him was the attitude and rock n roll swagger, there stood a man inviting a crowd into their dreams of freedom. The emotion he conjures from the lines ‘it all means nothing / if you’re not here anymore’ was a real moment.
A defining one? Probably not, there is too much drive and the ability for this is to be it. People of Manchester, do not miss their show with Creation23’s The Shambolics on 6th November at Night People
*Image courtesy of Alan Wells