Working Men’s Club: YES Basement, Manchester — Live Review
No support. No encore. No acknowledgement of the audience. That sums up the Working Men’s Club one-off gig at YES in Manchester.
The West Yorkshire band brought their post-punk meets acid house sound to the sweaty basement of one of the coolest venues on Oxford Road before heading off to the United States for the first time.
While this warm-up show was a good idea, they have nothing to worry about in terms of their live performance.
The charisma dripped off frontman Sydney Minsky-Sargeant as he hung off the front of the stage and took his shirt off halfway through. I don’t blame him though, the basement was clammy and hot.
As a stark contrast, other band members (Liam Ogburn and Mairead O’Connor) were deadly still and their stage presence was to intimidatingly stare into the audience. Their talent was outstanding as they would effortlessly move between instruments.
Meanwhile, Sydney attempted to start a dance circle in the middle of the crowd and cheekily exclaimed, “It’s a bit quiet down here”.
It is lazy to compare them to the likes of New Order and Depeche Mode, although it is clear these are influences. But they are certainly a band that ditch convention. They played a non-stop 55-minute set that immersed you into an electronic trance. Opening with ‘Be My Guest’ which may have been a strange choice as it is not a hit single, but the immediate drum machine and enormous strikes of guitar made sense.
I didn’t think it could get any louder until halfway through Minsky-Sargeant asked for the volume to be turned up. The body rippling bass of ‘Tomorrow’ filled the room as he sang “I hate tomorrows”, with the female voices in the band complimenting his monotone delivery. I too hate tomorrows, as I will not be at a WCM gig.
A quarter of the set was new material, from the recently announced second album ‘Fear Fear’ to be released in July. They ended the set with ‘Teeth’, the grittiest track on the debut album, nothing that a studio could capture.
The real stand out song for me was ‘A.A.A.A’, the song title mirroring the chorus as frontman Sydney breaks out into parrot like squawks. The lyrics “Burden fall over me, As the world sinks beneath” did not only echo through the speakers but also echoes the current Russian and Ukraine conflict as it feels as though the world is sinking. It makes sense that Sydney put on the performance he did as his family originate from Belarus and Ukraine, therefore he has every right to be angry at the world right now, and this was certainly clear.
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I was lucky to get a ticket as the full capacity of the basement was only 60, which coincidentally was the average age of the audience. Nevertheless, it was refreshing to see an older generation still enjoying live music, with the bright blue stage lights reflecting off the sea of nodding bald heads.
