Pulled
Apart By Horses
The Computers
Manchester, Club Academy
17th February 2012
Manchester’s Club Academy is a great
venue if you’re enthralled by the band you’re
watching, but for all intents and purposes it’s
a toilet. I say that not because it’s tiny
and not just because of that particular potent
smell that goes with the live music scene, but
because you don’t just sweat in the Club
Academy you become part of a massive sweat gland
on some inhuman beast. It’s disgusting.
It’s also the perfect venue for witnessing
the particular brand of hardcore that Leeds lads
Pulled Apart By Horses make and every fan in the
room is well aware of that; much the to the detriment
of security staff.
First up though is The Computers whose name brings
to mind a laptop indie band. They are though absolutely
nothing like this, in actual fact they claim to
be the inventers of something you might have heard
of called ‘Rock and Roll’. The sharply
dressed band come prepared to melt faces and with
their half an hour of frenetic screaming they
manage to burn a few, even setting off the fire
alarm along the way—which is becoming somewhat
of a typical annoyance at Manchester Academy.
Their raucous three minute blasts of street punk
energy translate into a perfectly rambunctious
set whereby they torment the crowd with broken
microphones, microphone stands, and even offer
us their guitars which of course had many grabbing
hands clinging to them; once again to the detriment
of security. The quintet’s antics left them
covered in spit, but then that’s what happens
when you spit directly above your own face every
twenty seconds. It’s a wonder they had time
to play any songs.
Pulled Apart By Horses were right when they said
they didn’t want to follow The Computers
and while their show might not have had the same
sense of chaos they needn’t worry too much.
After walking on ‘stage’, or a slightly
elevated ground level, to Clint Mansell’s
‘Requiem For A Dream’ they got straight
down to business with ‘I Punched A Lion
In The Throat’ which packs the jokes and
bollocks that made them fan favourites and it
doesn’t let anyone down.
The trouble with such a small venue for this particular
band is that Tom Hudson, vocals, is an tiny fragment
of a man and all their fans—apart from yours
truly and a small ginger boy—are seemingly
over 6 foot which makes it difficult to regale
you with stage antics here. They sounded great
though plying us in those thick northern accents
with their tour antics in between firing out songs.
The majority of the bands set list was, obviously,
from their newest album and they played everything
from first single, ‘V.E.N.O.M’ , to
the catchy ‘Epic Myth’, to what is
apparently their song of the tour the bewitching
‘Shake Off The Curse’. While these
songs and their live show shows the band come
with a new sense of maturity it’s old classics
like ‘High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive’
that really grab the audience by the throat and
chuck them head first into adolescence.
Unlike their support act Pulled Apart By Horses
don’t get into the crowd themselves, but
then they don’t need to as the pits are
plentiful and the crowd surfers coming thick and
fast, the same ten people over and over and over
again. As the band members slowly remove their
shirts to reveal the pasty white flesh and un-toned
abs of a true rock band it becomes apparent that
these guys don’t have a fucking clue what
they’re doing, they’re just along
for the ride and quite clearly enjoying every
moment of it.
See them while you can, before the toilet venues
turn to stadiums.
The Computers 4/5
Pulled Apart By Horses 4/5
Review By Lauren Millineaux
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