WORDS AND IMAGES MICHAEL BOND
With his 6th studio album ‘A Modern Day Distortion’ released back in September and a year packed with an acoustic shows, festivals, and support slots for the likes of Liam Gallagher & John Squire and the Lathums. Jake Bugg has been back on the road with his autumn headline tour, which concludes in Manchester tonight.
Tonight’s support comes from Liverpool 4 piece, Stone. With a mix of influences like alt-rock and punk and a touch or their own northern truth. Their music is definitely the type that needs to be listened live and loud. Bringing their year to an end with tonight’s show, promoting their debut album ‘Fear Life for a Lifetime’, frontman Fin is clearly leaving everything out on the stage with his ferocious performance, and the crowd are fully on board with it. To quote Fin ‘I want us to be captivating, I want to completely dig into the soul of every human in our crowd’.
As ever, the anticipation is starting to build and the play list flowing out over the PA is definitely doing its part in getting everybody primed and ready, with a high point of a collective sing along to Oasis’ Champagne Supernova. As the lights dim Jake makes his way onto the stage to a rapturous response from the crowd. Jake is joined by Tom “Robbo” Robertson on bass and Jack Atherton on drums for this tour, rather than the solo acoustic offering of previous shows. Adding an extra dimension to his performance.
Not known for his crowd interaction, Jake is straight down to business, kicking of the show with recent single ‘Zombieland’. And this pace continues as he drives through the set traversing from ‘Breakout’ to ‘Waiting for the World’ and ‘Never Said Goodbye’, all new tracks with ‘Taste It’ neatly sandwiched in-between to add some back catalogue familiarity.
As ‘Never Said Goodbye’ comes to a close, Bugg takes a moment to quickly say hello to the crowd. But then wastes no more time continuing the show, moving into the lively ‘Trouble Town’. With tonight’s 24 song set made up of 9 tracks from his new album, it really is a celebration of new and old. Although still young at 30, Jake has been an indie staple for just over 12 years now, drawing inspiration from the likes of Bob Dylan and the Gallaghers, amongst others, and this is really apparent as the set travels back and forth through his 6 albums.
Through the next few tracks, including new tunes ‘Got to Let You Go’ and ‘Instant Satisfaction’, Bugg really shows off his guitar skills with some jaw dropping solos, and the audience really show their appreciation of this masterclass. This is then offset with some slower acoustic moments of the show, notably a solo performance of ‘Broken’ which Bugg delivers with the perfect level of delicacy.
The calm doesn’t last too long however, as the set starts to build up momentum again. Hitting a high moment with fan favourites ‘Two Fingers’ and ‘Lightning Bolt’, as the fans sing along to every word. The pace and tempo of the gig continues to power through like a juggernaut right to the end, with the set concluding in ‘Simple Pleasures’ and ‘All I Need’. As live shows go Bugg is not flashy or necessarily a showman, but this is more than made up for in his music, and the fans input and reaction to this performance really add the magic. Showing that the fans are a key ingredient to his live experience.
Setlist:
1. Zombieland
2. Breakout
3. Taste It
4. Waiting for the World
5. Never Said Goodbye
6. Trouble Town
7. Seen It All
8. Slumville Sunrise
9. Keep On Moving
10. Maybe It’s Today
11. The Love We’re Hoping For
12. Got to Let You Go
13. Instant Satisfaction
14. Messed Up Kids
15. Beyond the Horizon
16. Broken
17. Me and You
18. Simple as This
19. I Wrote the Book
20. All Kinds of People
21. Two Fingers
22. Lightning Bolt
23. Still Got Time
24. Simple Pleasures
25. All I Need
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My life is a soundtrack, i track my life through music, photography is my passion, my escape, my expression. Without both i have pieces missing, thankfully i’m blessed and get to combine both.
Born in Manchester, lived in Australia for 22 years where i was heavily involved in the Australian Music Industry, firstly in bands (Singer) and then managing bands (all original), I moved back to the UK, Wales specifically 10 years ago
