Royal Blood’s 2023 has been defined by two things: releasing yet another brilliant record in their fourth studio album, Back to the Water Below, and p*ssing off an entire crowd at Radio 1’s Big Weekend, not to mention even more people watching back home with their viral antics.
With that in mind, we weren’t exactly sure how we were going to feel or what this audience was going to be like before we stepped foot inside the O2 Apollo, but we can confirm the whole storm in a teacup has now well and truly blown over and we didn’t care one bit once they started playing.
The second we heard Mike Kerr’s bass being ripped like both rhythm and lead guitar at the same time, and the pure ‘oomph’ of Ben Thatcher’s unmistakable drum-playing, we completely forgot that they slightly upset the music world just a few months ago and remembered one thing: they’re rockstars and we’ve seen plenty worse.
This was the story of Royal Blood’s return to Manchester and their gig at the legendary venue on Friday night as Storm Babet hit the region — and it was fitting really, given that their set featured ‘Typhoons’, ‘Trouble’s Coming’ and lyrics like “crashed down in a hurricane” in ‘Ten Tonne Skeleton’.
Royal Blood played the AO Arena in Manchester last year but looked at home in the Apollo (Credit: The Manc Group)
Even before we knew what we were in for, the surprisingly dramatic duo delivered a proper entrance, walking out to the iconic theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which was then followed up by an impressive light show that we’ll admit caught us by surprise and really did something epic to the atmosphere throughout.
ADVERTISEMENT
It didn’t take long for fans to get off their feet as they kicked the show off with recent single and album opener, ‘Mountains at Midnight’, before the pits started opening up as they got stuck into fan favourites such as ‘Boilermaker’, ‘Loose Change’, ‘How Did We Get So Dark?’, ‘Out of the Black’ and so on.
It’s been a while since we’ve been to a proper rager at the Apollo, so we’re glad that the place is still more than capable of whipping up frenzies like that. We were concerned that there wasn’t much movement during the support act but that’s always the gamble you make with the warm-ups.
ADVERTISEMENT
That’s not to say we didn’t enjoy them, by the way; Hot Wax were more than a pleasant surprise with arguably more overall energy on stage than the main event. Although it was clear the vast majority of the crowd were unaware of them prior to the gig, you’d be a fool to not go away and listen to more.
Once you were in the pit, there was no coming out.
With plenty of frenetic on-stage presence and more than enough confidence to remind you they’d be having just as much fun if the crowd wasn’t there, they felt plenty post-punk, a bit funk thanks to the basslines and modern enough thanks to some more intricate strum that made sure they didn’t feel like an old hat throwback.
In a word, they were great; we liked them a lot and it didn’t take long for us to realise why they were a good fit to support Royal Blood, boasting the same ability to go big with their sound using just three instruments as Mike and Ben do with just two.
ADVERTISEMENT
And that summed up the night as a whole, to be honest: a total of five musicians (six if you include the headliner’s session player who dipped in on a fair few songs) making a frankly ridiculous amount of noise between them — far more than a trio and just a pair of blokes should feasibly be able to make.
That’s the one thing that, regardless of whatever you think of them post-controversy, has always stunned us about Royal Blood. How do a frontman whose main instrument is a bass guitar and just one drummer make such explosive sounds between them and get people like thrashing like they were a full-fledged five-piece rock band?
We ended up being swept into various different parts of the crowd — always a good sign.
One thing’s for sure, they are well and truly in their ‘rockstar’ era right now, whether you like what comes with that or not. Mike might be four years sober now, with both he and Ben looking more svelte and stylish on stage — not only physically but in their overall presence — but they now look and feel like graduated performers who can command a crowd with a lot more authority than they did when they burst onto the scene with their debut in 2014.
And perhaps that’s why the Big Weekend moment went the way it did; these two are seasoned pros now and have earned a lot of plaudits in the genre over the past decade, so to find yourself playing to nearly 80,000 people who were mainly there to see pop acts probably felt like a loss of control and their frustration came out in the wrong way — even they’ve admitted that.
But that wasn’t the case at the Apollo. As the gig reached its crescendo with ‘Figure It Out’ and Ben stood atop a speaker and began conducting the crowd before jumping into it and preparing them for one last mosh as Mike kept the riff going, it was clear they were back in control and the audience in the palm of their hands.
ADVERTISEMENT
Now that’s how you get people back on-side: by simply going out there, making a big old racket and leaving the gig-goers to do the rest. We all know there’s no place that guarantees that more than right here in Manchester.
Royal Blood polished off their return with a big finish.
How bizarre it must be to be Pitbull. This is a man with, by all accounts, a pretty successful music career – but how bizarre for his trajectory to kick up so sharply now, 20 years after his debut album.
Watching the rapper, now 44 years old, dominate sold-out arenas across the world and become a social media sensation and something of a cult phenomenon is a joy to behold.
Who else could lead tens of thousands of people a night to party wearing a bald cap and a drawn-on goatee? Manchester donned their Pitbull costumes en masse and town looked all the better for it yesterday.
For anyone having even a hint of ‘I don’t get it’ in their minds, you’ve forgotten what nightclubs were like in the late 2000s. An era where we would post 80 blurry photos on Facebook from one night out, and our makeup bags were just Dream Matte Mousse and a kohl eyeliner.
It’s the same era where dance floors were absolutely dominated by Pitbull hits, from Hotel Room Service to Give Me Everything to International Love.
So his tour returning to Manchester feels like stepping back in time for all the 30-somethings in town, who all (myself included) decided to party like there were no consequences (currently staring into my cup of tea and remembering why I don’t usually drink wine on a school night).
The best thing about this gig is the way it strips all pretension away from all 23,500 people inside the Co-op Live. While we’d normally spend hours pampering and preening for a show to look our best, here we all stick a bald cap and a suit jacket on just let loose in a sea of people wearing the exact same uniform. I have never heard so many people breathlessly giggling their way through a show before.
And while the gig itself is quite silly and camp (there are scantily-clad dancers everywhere and the guy in charge of the pyrotechnics is pretty trigger-happy), there are some properly talented musicians on stage too.
Pitbull is backed by multiple percussionists, keyboards, guitars, woodwind and more, and his Latino roots shine with songs like Culo and Gasoline, where the dancers salsa and his hips get extra wriggly.
Pitbull staring out at his fans between songs in ManchesterPitbull brought the party to Manchester
We came because it’s silly but we stayed because it’s GOOD.
Prolific songwriter (‘Life is not a waste of time, time is not a waste of life. So let’s not waste any time, get wasted, and have the time of our lives’), party-starter, and philanthropist (he’s funded tuition-free schools in his hometown of Miami), Pitbull is soaking in every inch of the success that’s come his way.
On stage at Co-op Live in Manchester, the lights come up between songs to Pitbull stood on his little platform, grinning cheesily and looking over his assembled mini Pitbulls like a proud overlord. This man is having the time of his life.
Liam Gallagher is at it on social media again, and prior to a random posting spree in the early hours on Monday morning, he might have actually shed some light on his plans after the Oasis reunion tour over the weekend.
As always with anything the ever-vocal frontman says online, we urge you to take this with a pinch of salt.
Nevertheless, we’ve allowed ourselves to get very excited and hopeful that the Live ’25 tour isn’t just a one-off and that Oasis are back for good, at least as far as the younger Gallagher brother is concerned.
The latest excuse to be optimistic comes after Liam responded to a fan on Twitter asking whether or not people thought he would retire after the reunion shows, to which he simply responded:
Retire and make all the haters day not a fucking chance I’m in it right till last breath cmon you know
The co-manager and Ignition Management partner also told the outlet that there was currently no new music in the works. However, it was only recently that Liam himself – responding via X, once again – appeared to tell fans that a new album was already “in the bag”.
As for his response to McKinlay claims back in May, the 52-year-old simply posted: “The only people that will be making any kind of decisions on the future of OASIS will be ME & RKID, so let’s just take it one day at a time.”
He also confirmed the support acts and full reunion band lineup on the platform, too, so he’s not always just shouting aimlessly into the void for his own amusement. One can only hope…
Fingers crossed that both Liam and Noel Gallagher have plans for a VERY big finish to the reunion.
Both brothers are finally back in rehearsals ahead of the worldwide sellout shows this summer, and a number of apparent audio clips revealing how the comeback is sounding have appeared on the internet.
As well as being pictured attending the sessions in London, some supposed ‘setlists’ have also been leaked, though Liam himself has rubbished at least one image as an outright “FAKE” in his replies.
In fairness, the nation and fans all over the globe have waited so long that they’d probably be happy hearing pretty much any combination of songs at this point.
So yeah, only time will tell how serious he was being; then again, these are his most recent posts…
Danny Jones -
21st October 2023 
