Frazey Ford plays Brudenell: cool country for an icy evening

GryphonEditorAdm on 3 December 2021

As she strides on-stage, Frazey Ford nonchalantly places her glass of red wine on the speaker positioned next to her and leans over her guitar into the mic. “We’re gonna play some songs,” she says. “That’s how this goes.”

It’s a cool start to an icy night. Many of the crowd, as Ford acknowledges, have faced treacherous roads and slippery pavement to get to the thrice-rearranged gig tonight. After an 18-month wait, both anticipation and expectations are high. Just as well then that the country singer more than exceeds the bar set for her.

The Canadian songstress first garnered acclaim as a founding member of the alt-folk band The Be Good Tanyas  and saw much success throughout the noughties (including headlining the Royal Albert Hall in 2006) before striking out on her own in 2010. Since then, much of her solo work has paired confessional storytelling with soul-tinged Americana to create a catalog that is laidback, comforting yet somehow melancholic.  

Ambling through her setlist, Ford creates a space that feels relaxed and intimate, although there is still a sense that each song is born from a considered place of raw emotion. Switching out her acoustic to sit at her keyboard, her vocals simmer over the soulful grooves of her back band during ‘Azad’, a song dedicated to and named after Ford’s sister. What’s interesting though is that new tracks like these pack as much of a punch as old favourites like empowering breakup anthem ‘Done’ and ‘September Fields’, a lament on life’s purpose marinated in a bouncy swing of interplaying guitars.

The show draws to a close as Ford returns to the keyboard for ‘U Kin B The Sun’, the title track of her most recent album. Through both her honeyed vocals and sweet repartie with the crowd, the singer crafts story after story to begin to weave a picture of her innermost thoughts and feelings. However, Frazey Ford’s biggest strength is being warm enough to draw her audience in while retaining a coolness that keeps us gasping for more.

Courteeners Dazzle Old Trafford at Hometown Spectacle

GryphonEditorAdm on 29 September 2021

There are artists with devout, cult followings in their local area, and then there’s the Courteeners. Alternating between Heaton Park and Old Trafford Cricket Ground, the band returned to the latter for their customary outdoor Manchester show that seems to happen every few years, as they once again proved why they have reached such heights in their great city.

Despite last year’s release ‘More. Again. Forever.’ their setlist has remained roughly unaltered for a number of years; it is truly difficult to imagine ‘Are You In Love With A Notion?’ anywhere than at the start. The crowd was instantly raucous, with sing-alongs drowning out Liam Fray and his band that could have definitely benefited from a little more volume. 

The triple screen layout that overlooked a magnificent Old Trafford added a majestic atmosphere to the gig, as Courteeners firmly cemented their status as a headline act — and no less — which was reinforced by their debut major headline slot at Glasgow’s TRNSMT two weeks prior. With Oasis, The Stone Roses and The Smiths now in ruins, Courteeners have been Manchester’s biggest band for some time now, now rivalled only by Liam Gallagher’s resurgent solo career.

The inevitable climax of ‘Not Nineteen Forever’ after a few acoustic numbers was refreshing, with the band packing their hits into the top and tail end of the set — a distribution that perhaps only Manchester could accommodate, with the crowd still knowing every word to deeper cuts like ‘Fallowfield Hillbilly’ and ‘Lose Control.’ 

It begs the question of if, after their fourth major outdoor show in Manchester, Courteeners will ever make the jump to the likes of Reading and Leeds headliners, or outgrow O2 Academies in the south. However, they will certainly be welcomed back with open arms in their glorious city for many years to come.