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Ravyn Lenae at Gorilla Manchester – Our ‘One Wish’ was granted

She really is a genius.

Thomas Melia Thomas Melia - 20th November 2024

This was Ravyn Lenae’s first rodeo at Gorilla and it’s safe to say she had the Manchester crowd hooked on her live set like ‘Candy’ (sorry).

Only two lines in and three puns deep but Ravyn’s performance was nothing to joke about, especially with her to-die-for vocals and killer live accompaniment.

Her most recent album and tour are both branded, Birds Eye, and while Gorilla may not be the most panoramic place in our beautiful city to overlook the Manchester skyline, the bubbly and engaging crowd sure painted a pretty well-rounded picture of the Mancunian hospitality. 

The introduction to ‘Bad Idea’ feels like a spaceship descending to earth and it couldn’t be more fitting because let’s face it, an artist this good simply can’t be living on the same planet as us she’s simply out-of-this-world.

Similarly, the follow-up ‘1 of 1’ has an identical space-tech vibe with a static-filled opening and instrumental making it a perfect predecessor. These two tunes have impressive soundscapes with the live drums even more so helping to excite a sold-out venue.

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Ravyn Lenae Manchester show
Ravyn Lenae wasn’t shy on stage, commanding the Gorilla stage.
Ravyn Lenae Manchester Gorilla
Lenae appreciating the roars of the Manchester crowd.
Credit: Audio North/The Manc Group

Seven tracks into the setlist, Lenae knows how to keep Gorilla at her fingertips performing hits ‘M.I.A’, ‘The Night Song’ and ‘Candy’ back-to-back-to-back – easily the holy trinity of track runs on this tour.

Taken from her debut outing Hypnos, the afrobeats and lo-fi inspired ‘M.I.A’ doubles as a dancefloor filler and an instant crowd pleaser, ironically we were lost in the music.

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The middle of this three-track-run ‘The Night Song’ keeps spirits high and boosts our confidence as the 25-year-old has us singing, “Hair down, feeling alright/ Got my edges on tight, It’s a party tonight”.

Her sweet-named album track ‘Candy’ jet sets us to a tropical paradise with its reggae-fused rhythms, and after a full ten minutes of side-stepping and attempting to dance, the cold temperature outside didn’t even cross the crowd’s mind.

Besides being some of her best numbers, these three upbeat tunes take us through a small piece of her past three projects with each of the singles featuring on a different respective release from 2018 all the way up to present day.

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Ravyn lenae showing some love to at the Manchester show.
Nothing but love from Ravyn Lenae and her crew for the Mancs.
Ravyn Lenae live
Lost in music, Lenae and band at Gorilla, Manchester.
Credit: The Manc Group

Steve Lacy produced ‘Sticky’ was another standout, her rocker chic-esque vocal style flaunts all over the live band’s arrangement as she flaunts, ‘What did you do?/ Got me confused’.

‘One Wish’ was ethereal; I may have an unfair bias with this single being my personal favourite in the American star’s discography, but the vocal delivery and Lenae’s characterisation elevated this to new heights – even better than its original studio recording, maybe.

Manchester never misses the chance for an encore, especially not when it’s the plucky guitar bop ‘Love Me Not’. Up there with one of her best.

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The crowd erupted as Lenae asked, “You want one more?”, before whistling, “See right now I need you, I’ll meet you somewhere now”, it was obvious concertgoers wanted this show wasn’t done.

The Manchester date marks the final show of the whole tour and Lenae was feeling very reflective during song breaks, telling the buzzy crowd, “I’m so grateful that I still get to tour this part of the world and I appreciate you all braving the cold for me”.

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When you’re getting to witness someone as remarkable as Chicago-born singer Ravyn Lenae, a little bit of nippy Manchester weather is nothing!

For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Images — The Manc Group

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A music festival is coming to a Manchester skate park

Danny Jones Danny Jones music festival at manchester skate park 2025

With the sun starting to shine more consistently and the music festival season well and truly on its way, we’ll admit we weren’t expecting to see an event taking place on a Manchester skate park, of all places.

Projekts Skatepark, the long-standing skating hub and cultural hotspot located under Macunian Way, is set to host the fourth edition of the unapologetically named ‘Metlchester’.

Starting out life as little more than a small Oldham Street takeover, the city centre festival is returning for this year, bringing plenty of alternative music, skate vibes, bevs and more.

You can see the lineup confirmed so far down below:

The 2025 edition of the festival, a.k.a. ‘Metlchester Vol. 4’, is taking place later this month.

Projekts has been catering to local boarders for the past two decades, and along with their on-site cafe and bar, the space has been put to use for several other special events – case and point, Meltchester Festival, which first started back in 2022.

Bringing a healthy dose of garage rock, post-punk and psych music to NQ from the outset, now it’s expanded, you can expect even more variety when it comes to genre this time around, as well as a well-stocked in-house bar and street food stalls.

Oh yeah, and of course there’ll be the usual merch and skate shop for you to browse.

As for the aforementioned tunes, while last year’s festival was headlined by Night Beats and Frankie & The Witch Fingers, topping the bill this year are Snapped Ankles, along with a mix of grassroots artists, including local duo, Slap Rash, who recently featured as one of our Manc artists of the month for April.

projekts skatepark
Projekts opened back in 2004
slap rash manchester gigs
Slap Rash
Credit: Supplied

Set in collaboration with Sour Grapes Records, an equally longstanding regional promoter with hundreds of successful events to their name, they make up part of the Greater Manchester Music Commission.

Serving up an exciting springtime event full of energy, from the skate culture to the performances themselves, this is the perfect appetiser ahead of a busy summer schedule as we approach festival season.

They also happen to be the event coordinators for local music venue Big Hands, where not only are current Sicilian traders Rizzo’s are based (also set to join the festival for the day) but where this year’s after party will be held, which is free for ticket holders, by the way.

Set to kick off from 12 noon on 17 May, with a pro skater session running until 2pm before the tunage, Metlchester sounds like a belter.

You can grab your tickets HERE.

One the best in the North: Green Island celebrates fifth anniversary with biggest music festival yet
Meltchester isn’t the only festival hosted within a unique setting that we’re looking forward to seeing return this year.

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Featured Images — quantum bunny (via Flickr)/Supplied

Audio

Scouting For Girls on Chesney Hawkes, Manchester gigs, Old Trafford and new tour

Thomas Melia Thomas Melia

In case you missed it, British boyband and pop-rockers Scouting For Girls have announced a 20-date UK tour for early next year.

They’re already planning potential set lists for the tour already including some very special surprises as well as an entire brand new album.

Lead vocalist Roy Stride reminisces on life in a boyband, career highlights and just how excited he is to play Manchester once again.

After playing at Manchester Cathedral earlier this year, the boys are coming back to one of Manchester’s city centre music venues for a 15-year anniversary tour for their sophomore LP, Everybody Wants To Be On TV.

@scoutingforgirls

Manchester Cathedral ❤️🙌🥰

♬ She’s So Lovely – Scouting For Girls

Scouting For Girls Interview

With the announcement of a new tour, can we expect any new music to coincide with this?

 We have announced a new album that will come out after our tour. This tour is all about celebrating the second album, we’re going to slip in maybe one or two new songs into the setlist as we go, though.

How excited are you to be coming back to Manchester after the reception of your cathedral gig earlier this year?

 That Manchester Cathedral gig was like it, I was gonna say biblical, but it really, it really, like, it was an amazing place to play it and it, it was unlike any gig we’d done before. Audience participation and people singing along works so well in a cathedral.

It really was a great feeling.

Are there any songs that you’ve put out on Everybody Wants To Be On TV that have grown on you over time or become your favourite all these years later?

 There’s a song on there called ‘Posh Girls’ which I still can’t believe we put on the record, but it’s so ridiculous and fun, you know, that’s probably a real favourite of mine. It’s a real live favourite too.

Scouting for Girls are heading to O2 Apollo in Manchester early next year.
Scouting for Girls are heading to O2 Apollo in Manchester early next year.
Credit: Press Shot

This time round you’re playing O2 Apollo and in the past you’ve played multiple venues in our city centre, which has been your favourite?

 Night and Day Cafe and O2 Apollo but we’ve even played old Trafford. We played in between a football or rugby game, that was pretty epic.

There’s a video which went round our band and crew WhatsApp group of the first time we played [O2 Apollo] in 2010, like when the album first came out.

We played the Royal Albert Hall the night before with these trumpet players, and they got really drunk and ended up staying on the tour bus with us. The trumpet players weren’t supposed to be there, but we hid them in the Manchester crowd and got them to play this fanfare intro.

It was really bad because they were just incredibly hung over, it was all over the place and our guitarists’ were just filming it but it’s still a real core memory for me.

It’s not just Manchester you’re stopping off at either, you’re playing a 20 date UK tour, how are you feeling ahead of playing a tour this big?

I love traveling around the country. I love being on a tour bus. I love getting a show really good. Our shows are quite fluid and they change, and the setlists change, but when you get really tight on tour it’s a magical place because you go on stage and you know, whatever happens, it’s going to be amazing.

And in fact, the weirdest stuff that happens, whether I end up in the crowd or the balcony, doing a conga – it’ll be a great night every night.

On your album you have a song titled ‘Michaela Strachan’, you all met for the first time last year at your Shepherd’s Bush show – Have you considered the potential of her joining you on stage during this song?

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Maybe. I don’t know, however, I’m quite a good friend of Chesney Hawkes, who was just in the Big Brother house, and he was supposed to play a couple of songs last tour.

He was going to pop up and play like ‘The One and Only’ at one of our shows last year and we couldn’t make it happen because our guitarist ended up having a baby early and we didn’t have enough time to do it. I think we will have to play ‘Michaela Strachan’ on tour, though.

You have a song titled ‘Elvis Ain’t Dead’ named after the rock ‘n’ roll legend, besides the Memphis icon, who are your favourite music legends?

I’ve got a holy trinity: The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The [Rolling] Stones, everything goes back to those bands for me.

I also like REM I’d love for them to get back together. They were one of the first bands I saw and when they split up I honestly mourned when they split us up, I was depressed for like two weeks. Their last album was so good.

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They’ve done a few shows now so I don’t whether they’ll get back together, but that is definitely something I would love to see.

With this tour celebrating the remarkable 15 year anniversary of Everyone Wants To Be On TV, are there any songs off this project you wish fans showed more attention to when the album initially came out?

There was a song called ‘Take A Chance’ which was the last single, I hadn’t listened to the album for many years but going back and listening to it properly there’s some really good moments on it.

You spoke on social media about your single ‘The Place We Used To Meet’ and the album of the same name being very personal to you. Did fans respond the same way they did to your first few records?

It was a slightly different record. I suppose the songs were a bit more like this inner love song in terms of being more introspective, a bit more ballady. We still had an amazing response to it and we’re really, really proud of that album. But I don’t think it had like a banger like our first records.

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If you could pick one song off The Place We Used To Meet that each of you connects to the most, what would it be and why?

Glow. It was one of the singles and it’s all about how I sort of met my wife and how we met in Tokyo, got engaged, went back to Tokyo and I proposed to her. I went and did a video [for ‘Glow’] in Tokyo too. So it’s really special.

I think we’re working out what songs we’re going to put in the festival set but I think that’s still got to be in there.

Have there been any moments in your career that have made you feel like ‘The Luckiest Boy In The World’? 

‘This Ain’t A Love Song’, because it went to number one and we got to play Christmas Top of the Pops. It was a massive thing for us – that was definitely a bucket list moment.

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We also made Pete, our drummer, wear a Santa costume and told him we were all going to dress up, then we walked out the dressing rooms and he was the only one in an outfit, so he’s just there with this whole Santa costume and beard set while we’re just dressed looking normal.

To this day, he can’t prove that he was actually on Top of the Pops because it just looks like a guy with a massive beard.

Scouting for Girls are heading out on tour to celebrate 15 years of 'Everybody Wants To Be On TV'.
Scouting for Girls are heading out on tour to celebrate 15 years of ‘Everybody Wants To Be On TV’.

Scouting for Girls are heading out on a 20-date UK tour next year including a Manchester date at O2 Apollo.

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For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Images — Publicity Pictures (supplied)

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