MANCHESTER!

A steaming hot, dark, densely packed show in a room where the rain new exactly how to get onstage, or was it condensation from the crowd’s exhales? Who knows. All I knew is that it was a torturous drip that always seemed to land on my hand, and then on my pedalboard, and i thought, what are the odds that i’ll short out the whole city tonight? It could’ve been real.

We had never played Manchester before, or had we? Not this stage, for sure. The room ached from decades of private parties and public events, you could feel it in the stained glass, hear it echoing off the wooden walls, taste it dripping from the ceiling… ew, but endlessly charming. As were our openers, who we shared a friend with in Hudson, NY.

Our audience was made up of hardcore fans who sang along at the top of their lungs on some tunes, and we were really proud to reveal a sampled clip of a student group from Leeds, the Songsmiths, who had done an a capella cover of Sleep Gets Your Ghost. Love it!

Other than a hometown show in upstate New York, this was the first show we performed after Scholars was released, and kicked off the last tour we’ve done outside of North America. At this point in our collective Covid existence, I can’t imagine we’ll ever get to experience that type of dense audience participation again, and sadly, despite the discomfort and claustrophobia it can induce, I really, really miss it.

— Arone (her)
@missarone