On a windy Wednesday in West Hollywood, Manchester Orchestra killed it at their second consecutive sold-out show at the Troubadour. The Atlanta-based band has gained a considerable buzz in the music scene, with their brand of grunge-laden indie rock featuring surging riffs that ebb into moments of quiet beauty. Pleasing fans, the band played a nice spread of songs from their debut record I’m Like a Virgin Losing a Child and their highly touted sophomore release Mean Everything to Nothing.
Kicking the show off, they played a witty little ditty revealing frontman Andy Hull’s desire to become friends with Fiddy. Cent, that is. In this fictitious friendship, Hull offers condolences for the rapper’s lack of success since his first album, suggests that they grab a beer or coffee or tea sometime, assures the vitamin-infused beverage tycoon that they would make mad cash together, and laments that one time Fiddy’s bodyguards beat him up outside the El Rey (“That part of the Los Angeles trip sucked,” Hull observed). Each line had the crowd cracking up, and it was a solid way to start their set.
Launching into “In My Teeth,” lion-esque Hull howled into the mic with a tangible urgency. Multi-instrumentalist Chris Freeman played a passionate performance throughout the show, seamlessly pivoting from pounding his keys, to vigorously beating the tambourine, then transitioning to thrash his drums, and sometimes swiveling to croon into the mic.
The crowd shook along to “Shake it Out,” the band’s current single off Mean Everything to Nothing. Hull’s vocals were punctuated by gritty bursts of emotion and receded into the beautifully spare bridge, in which the audience’s impassioned singing nearly engulfed his.
After Weezer-tinted track “My Friend Marcus,” Hull observed, “We haven’t talked much tonight. Probably because we’re in tune.” But the band stopped to do just that (“We have integrity in tune,” he explained), and Hull and Freeman engaged in jocular banter involving imagined retribution for an apparent tambourine theft that occurred the previous evening. “We’re going to play a three-hour set: Fifty minutes of music, the rest—skits,” joked Hull before launching into “I Can Barely Breathe.”
The high point of the show came with the sludgy epic “Pride.” Its slow build and Sabbath-like riffs rendered the room dense with guitars and tense energy.
Manchester also broke out a new song, which Hull stated will appear on their forthcoming summer record. With a punchy beat and catchy guitar line reminiscent of Nirvana’s “Lithium,” the song seemed to be a natural progression from Mean Everything to Nothing and demonstrated the band’s continually sharpening songwriting skills. It definitely made me excited to hear more.
Another highlight featured a mellow, decelerated version of “The Only One.” Easily the most poppy and peppy song in the band’s arsenal, Hull slowed it to a crawl—buttressed by the audience’s mesmerized vocals—and played sans band until its closing chords.
Hull attacked his candy-apple red guitar on “Wolves at Night” from their debut album, and irresistibly catchy radio hit “I’ve Got Friends” incited the crowd. MO finally closed out the show with on a melancholic note with the delicately gut-wrenching “I Can Feel a Hot One.” They declined to perform an encore, explaining they had done one the night before (but…you didn’t do one for us!). Regardless, Manchester Orchestra’s performance surpassed the excellence of their records and cemented their status as a band with a bright future.
