Music
Review: Boston Manor support Moose Blood in Brighton
Blackpool pop-punkers, Boston Manor, have just finished up support duty for Moose Blood, touring the UK heavily throughout January.
Before they unpacked their dirty washing though, we asked frontman Henry Cox to review the final show at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, Brighton. Find out what he thought below…
Going out on a bang
“Tonight has been strange, we’ve been playing this set for 16 consecutive nights and having a blast doing it. You begin to get into a bit of a routine and you become friends with the bands you’re touring with, and it all becomes quite comfortable. Tonight, however, I was pretty nervous before going on stage.
We didn’t have much of a chance to sound check but I was mostly nervous because you want to go out with a bit of a bang and play to the best of your ability. The set went well, people sung along and I noticed some familiar faces who had come to some of the previous shows on this tour, some of whom were even wearing our merch (which is incredibly humbling and something that’s pretty new to us, it blows my mind).
Mates Club
After us came Choir Vandals, my favourite Americans in the whole world who absolutely smashed their set as they have done every night on this tour despite battling the flu. I’ve never seen them go quite as mental as they did tonight which was just brilliant to watch. Austin delivered his vocals with such ferocity; despite having such a melancholy sound there’s something so punk about the way they play, it’s just great to watch.
A band made to headline
Then came Moose Blood. They’re honestly one of my favourite bands, so being asked to tour with them was so exciting. They’ve been really good to us on this tour, and getting to watch them play live every day has been fantastic (so much so that we even went to go watch them play on our day off).
The venue was somewhat awkward; low ceilings, a small stage with the monitors resting on crates. There was something a little unstable about it all, people have been going crazy for this set every night and you could see the crowd practically bubbling with energy through some of the earlier songs but not wanting to knock people onto the stage or hit their head on the ceiling; instead settling for just singing at the top of their lungs.
Then Bukowski kicked in and the shit hit the proverbial fan. People were crowd surfing despite there barely being room for a person between peoples’ heads and the ceiling, mic stands were knocked over; it was awesome. This continued through pretty much every song right up until Boston, the last song they played. At this point pretty much everyone who was backstage ran on and sang along or stage dived. There were Choir Vandals, there were girlfriends, and I think even a couple of Gnarwolves. Guitars were unplugged, beer was flying everywhere and it was bloody brilliant. A lovely way to end what has been a fantastic three weeks.
An unforgettable tour
Moose Blood are a band that have so much integrity it hurts, they’re awesome musicians and they work damn hard. I’ve followed them from when they put their first demo up, so to see them doing so well is amazing from playing sold out headline shows to supporting Fightstar next month. There are some huge things in store for these guys and I’m so excited for them. We’ve learned a ton on this tour, people have been very good to us. We’ve never played to crowds of this size, or toured for this long, it’s been a great experienced that I will never forget.”
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