Boston Manor - Live At Sin City

Last week Boston Manor played some small warm up shows for Reading and Leeds Festival, one of them being at Sin City in Swansea. These shows would be the first club shows Boston Manor have played in well over 2 years, and some of their first few shows back since the lockdown had ended. This would also be the first time some songs from Boston Manor’s third album GLUE would be played live. For those of you who have been reading the blog for a while, you may remember that GLUE was my album of the year for 2020, so to say that I was excited would be an understatement.

There were two support bands this time; James & The Cold Gun who consist of James Joseph formerly of Holding Absence and James Biss, and Static Dress, the post hardcore band from Leeds who are currently making waves through the music scene. Both bands got the crowd raring and ready to go with some really energetic performances, this was only James & The Cold Gun’s second live show ever, and you could really see the potential there for them to go far. The crowd was definitely feeding off the energy of Static Dress as well.

I first saw Boston Manor perform live at Slam Dunk in 2019, albeit the end of their set as I had just been watching another band, but they really had me intrigued. So by the time Leeds 2019 came around I went to watch their full set and was completely blown away. They have been a band on my radar ever since, I bought a copy of ‘Welcome To The Neighbourhood’ after their Leeds performance and eagerly anticipated the release of GLUE in May of 2020. Having become such a fan over the last 2 years, I couldn’t wait to see them perform again, especially with these new songs.

Let me tell you, I was not disappointed at all. They blew me away once again. The set was immaculate, they played all the songs you would want them to play and the performance was the best I’d ever seen by them. I was completely in the moment the whole time, never wanting it to end, but they made the most of every minute count and it was so worth it. To see them play in Sin City in Swansea was not something I thought would happen, but I am so glad it did.

New song ‘Carbon Mono’ became a set highlight for me as I had only heard the song a few times, but in a live setting it just works really well, I can’t wait to see what more we get from them before the year is over. The setlist was like hit after hit, going from ‘Flowers in Your Dustbin’ a fan favourite from ‘Welcome To The Neighbourhood’ into ‘Brand New Kids’ my favourite song from GLUE, into ’Ratking’ which has become a huge fan favourite from GLUE, was just incredible, there was no stopping and no time to take a breath.

The vulnerable moment of ‘On A High Ledge’ really added some emotion to the set for me, and though it’s not a song to jump around to like the rest, you could see that the whole audience was in that moment together and I hope that’s a song they keep in the set in future as I feel it adds more and shows another side to the band that you may not know about if you haven’t listened to the albums in full.

I was so happy that the band played ‘Liquid’ as every time I heard that song over the last year I could just imagine how wild a crowd would go to it’s performance, and I was not wrong. It’s a song from GLUE that just works really well live, that leading into classic Boston Manor song ‘Halo’ was the best ending we could have asked for.

An immaculate set from one of the best rock bands out there at the moment. If you ever have the chance to see Boston Manor live, I would definitely take it, and if you haven’t given their music a chance before then I think this is your sign. I can’t wait to hear what other new music is on the way from them as it truly promises to be better than ever if that show was anything to go by.

Setlist:

Everything Is Ordinary

Carbon Mono

Flowers In Your Dustbin

Brand New Kids

Ratking

England’s Dreaming

Plasticine Dreams

On A High Ledge

You, Me & The Class War

Bad Machine

Laika

Liquid

Halo

Listen to 'Carbon Mono' by Boston Manor here.

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