Manchester Academy enjoyed the company of local band Spring King – our reporter Amy Williams went along to review!
Since playing the Band on the Wall venue last June, Spring King’s popularity has skyrocketed, seeing them rise from that tiny venue to the relatively large capacity of Academy 2.
Packed from wall to wall, Manchester Academy 2 held two support acts to warm up the crowd before the main event.
The floor can seem pretty empty when awaiting the headline act, but both support bands Inuit and The Magic Gang filled the venue with buzzing energy. Both support acts sent the crowd into absolute ecstasy as the moshing began and the audience echoed lyrics back to the stage.
After releasing their first album Tell Me If You Like To in June this year, Spring King had a whirlwind of a Summer and lashed their talent out to an ever-growing following. The Northern four piece are like a montage of clashy punk beats with a rock edge and an incredible gift of performance.
Tarek Musa does an incredible job playing drums as well as singing and rocking. Paralleling with his intense enthusiasm was John Green on bass accompanied by Pete Darlington and Andy Morton on guitar; they threw themselves around the stage so violently but yet no note was heard to be played incorrectly. Well, apart from bassist James Green breaking his instrument in the first song Better Man.
Can't even begin to describe Manchester last night….it was incredible. Thanks for coming. Big love ? pic.twitter.com/TlnW5oEPA7
— Spring King (@springkingband) October 15, 2016
The crowd parted to allow a massive mosh pit for the climax of Who Are You? and it included almost half of the venue who were prepared for moments of crazy jumping in rages of excitement. Other songs which provoked the best crowd reactions were Tell Me If You Like To and It’s so Dark, which are two songs that are prominent on the album for being uniquely magnificent.
Morton came to the front of the stage and pulled faces to crack laughs from everyone as they oscillated to their post-punk beats before he attempted a stage dive. He got a few strides out before falling to the floor and being passed back to stage by fans excited to have caught him.
Amidst the continued moshing was the chants for an encore; the energies were still running wild as fans crawled onto people’s shoulders and ignored any demands for them to get down. In the dark room filled with spilt beer and a humid atmosphere, the aftermath of rocksteady dancing was one of an immensity.
As their silhouettes appeared from the rear of the stage, the audience screamed as they began to play Rectifier as their last song of the night. It’s a good job they finished then or it appeared that exhaustion within the crowd would have taken over, as there wasn’t one second that body’s weren’t clashing from dancing and people weren’t cheering.
The Manchester quartet had chemistry that was fully noticeable whilst they were on Manchester Academy 2’s stage; they worked together to pull off a gig that could make you speechless and already wanting tickets to their next show.
Spring King loved the audience just as much as they loved them and they obviously have more love to give to their increasing fan base. They’re supporting Cage The Elephant next, but it’s hard to see how it could get any better than this gig, but there’s only one way to find out.
Amy Williams
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