Manchester Royal Northern College Of Music – 9th November 2004

Review by oneofthethree

Manchester’s show was at the Royal Northern College Of Music, a venue specifically designed for performing more classical music, so the stage was huge and the acoustics were perfect wherever in the venue you were seated (I was in Row N, suddenly a pass doesn’t seem that attractive when it doesn’t actually guarantee you a seat).

Trap 2 got their best reaction of the tour.  As a five-piece all male guitar driven band it’s easy to fall into following cliches of what they should look and sound like, but they have a personality and humour and humility about them that saves them from that fate.  And they’ve got some cracking tunes to boot.  Hopefully this tour and the Kasabian tour beforehand will lead them to bigger things.  They’ve certainly got a fighting chance.

Opening with Laid, the first thing that’s clear tonight, is how stunning the sound is in the venue and what a fantastic job Stuart and Chris have done on the desk.  The Manchester crowd generally wasn’t as attentive as Leeds however.  Quite why people feel the need to shout “Cmon Tim” during quiet songs is beyond me, it certainly doesn’t help the band perform any better.

What would have done was the instant recognition by a significant section of the crowd of Discover which made its first and only appearance of the UK tour as the second song of the evening.  As my personal favourite track off Bone, it was great to hear it again and the setting made the lyrics even more piercing and personal than before.

The faster songs get pockets of the audience up to dance in their seats and Tim invited one of the more extreme dancers on to stage for Into Darkness.  The poor guy however couldn’t keep up with Tim’s dancing for most of the song.  What was becoming increasingly noticeable was the amount of improvisation in certain songs, particularly from Lee and Robin.  Bone, Darkness and Butterfly’s Dream in particular benefitting from this.

As in Leeds, the last two or three songs brought the crowd to their feet and down the front to dance.  Sat near the back, Butterfly’s Dream and Monkey God looked and sounded enormous, extremely powerful and direct.  Manchester erupted at the end and when the encore opened with Ring The Bells.  The audience did however return to their seats or sat on the floor for the final Fall In Love, the crystal clear acoustics making it the ideal environment to play the song.  Another victory in front of a sold-out crowd.