WORDS HARRY K / IMAGES GOSIA CZYZNIEWSKA
It was the Castlefield Bowl in Manchester for another night of the brilliant Sounds Of The City, and tonight it was hip hop superstar artist Benjamin Gerard Coyle-Larner aka Loyle Carner,
But before he was to take the stage in the brilliant amphitheatre that is Castlefield Bowl we were going to be treated to something special from Children of Zeus the Manchester duo who is considered one of the UK’s best Hip Hop acts.
Being local boys this was going to be a pretty special night for them, walking onto the stage to raptures of applause and greeting the crowd in front of them with “From Manchester to Manchester with love” they proceeded to blow everyone away, with their amazing brand of soulful hip hop, the interaction with the crowd was awesome, “Don’t get robbed out there”, “Put your hands in the air, we love you Manchester!”, “You sound very polite make it sound like Manchester” and even commenting on the English football score, “England’s losing, if you want England to win sing yeah yeah don’t let me down Manchester!” what a great start to the evening
Then it was time for the man himself south London rapper Loyle Carner. Carner bounces onto the stage wearing a cap, long basketball type shorts and blue tracksuit top after thanking everybody “Thanks to you for being here even with the football on” and then kicks off his set with “Hate” and “Plastic”
Carner has a generational talent for songwriting and is an amazing storyteller. Carner works his way through a setlist drawn from all albums
Tracks like “Damselfly” bring the house down, “Make some noise for the guitar!” as Loyle sits on the stage and listens to the solo.
He is dedicating “Homerton” to his “beautiful, dangerous son! He’s 4 years old, born in November, he’s a Scorpio haha” For 2nd verse Loyle sits down by the drums for a more intimate moment with “I know you are missing out on the football to check me” embedded in the lyrics.
On “Nobody Knows” Loyle goes down to sing with the girls in the front row who and I quote Loyle “sang every single lyric to every single song, every fucking lyric and she looks just like me, if I was a girl with long hair you know!” the connection between the man and his audience is nothing short of perfect
Throw in an impromptu version of The Lightning Seeds “Football’s Coming Home”
As the set draws to a close I feel the whole crowd has been on a journey with Carner. Every track as strong as the one before and the one after and as the Crowd cheer one more song, he comes out to perform a poem before the last song
Finishing with the “My Favourite place to perform in the world is Manchester and a football is coming home chant the whole place is left buzzing
SETLIST:
1/ Hate
2/ Plastic
3/ Ain’t Nothing Changed
4/ Georgetown
5/ Desoleil (Brilliant Corners)
6/ Angel
7/ Damselfly
8/ Yesterday
9/ Homerton
10/ Nobody Knows (Ladas Road)
11/ Still
12/ Loose Ends
13/ Ice Water
14/ A Lasting Place
15/ Speed of Plight
16/ Ottolenghi
ENCORE
17/ Poem
FOLLOW LOYLE CARNER
FOLLOW CHILDREN OF ZEUS
