Massive Wagons, Manchester Academy 2, 2021

The Manchester music scene has began slowly but surely begun to come back to life with punters gathering inside for a somewhat calm and relaxed atmosphere with the drinks flowing. All that were present were ready for the anticipated bands of the evening with a sense of excitement in the air.

For Chris Catalyst ,who is most notable through Sisters of Mercy fame, he kicked of proceedings with their first track ‘Make Art Good’ flowing through the mix of traditional punk-rock riffs. The troupe came across as engaging and shown how appreciative the leaders were for the punters to arrive early while ‘King of Everything’ and ‘A Modern Adventure’ kicked in through the amps. As most of their material came from their recent Kaleidoscopes record, it gave the room the opportunity to experience the sounds firsthand. With tracks such as ‘Yeah, (Oh No)’ and ‘Wake Me Up Monday’, they won the crowd over to the material musically reminiscent of Cheap Trick. Ending their performance on a suitable high with the stomping ‘The Ride’, ‘Happy’, and ‘Boys keep swinging’, it was a very positive set from all familiar with Chris Catalyst’s material, and a welcome surprise for newcomers. A job well done.

While  the classic AC/DC’s ‘For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) blasted through the PA, the crowd blasted a massive roar welcoming Massive Wagons back onto the stage.  The band came out firing on all cylinders, with  ‘In It Together’ and ‘China Plates’ on showing off their high octane, no frills rock and roll sound we’ve all come to love. Flowing through the set with ‘Pressure’ bringing into an enjoyable mash-up of the rock classics that brought their congregation into a collective moshpit of smiling unity. It was a very good thing that the set was brought down a level to chill with the stirring tracks ‘The Day We Fell’ and ‘Sad Sad Song’, showing the band’s versatility. WIth the raucous jumpstarted even further with the feet stomping ‘Ratio’ and the speed was picked up from tracks ‘Hellscrewya’ and ‘Nails’. Humorously bringing the octane into overdrive on ‘Fee Fi Fo Fum’ and then keeping the levels on maximum to ‘House Of Noise’, the band had the fans in the palm of their hand all night.

Massive Wagons finished off the night with an encore  trio of crowd favourites such as the delicious ‘The Curry Song’, the smooth ‘Tokyo’ and the incendiary  ‘Back To The Stack’ releasing one last bit of steam to close off the evening. The Manchester Academy 2 did not reach full capacity and it is hard to believe the sight from their very solid fanbase. However, it did not stop the real feeling of reaching some kind of normality and bringing together a crowd of music lovers enjoying themselves.

 

Words: Phillip Krawiec

Photography: Sabrina Ramdoyal