LIVE REVIEW: Grimes @Manchester Academy.

rattlemag
Mar 15, 2016
2 min read

Four years after her last visit, Grimes returns to Manchester to tour her most recent album Art Angels.

Grimes: Photo by Nuno Ferreira

Appearing suddenly from a cloud of smoke, the audience was met with support act HANA, a quiet and unassuming American singer whose hazy dreamlike personality reflected in her music. Flanked by two sets of parasols, songs came primarily from her upcoming EP with debut “Clay” being the standout track, a slow considered song that ends before it risks outstaying its welcome. The songs that follow meld together into a gentle consistent sound of drum beats and swirling vocals, as HANA swoons around the stage as if to perform only to herself. HANA’s set closes with newest single “Underwater”, combining steady drum beats with more high pitched vocals, the song acts as an almost Grimes-lite sounding song, a perfect bridge between HANA’s set and the act to follow.

HANA: Photo by Nuno Ferreira

The classical string music piped through the background of the Academy merged seamlessly into Grimes’ opening track “Laughing and Not Being Normal”. Arriving in a similarly instantaneous style to support act HANA, Grimes was joined by two backing dancers and now - affording herself the freedom from being stuck behind the keyboard - Grimes was perhaps the most active of all, out screaming a crowd already reaching fever pitch. Sole survivor of a previous and now lost album, “REALiTi” becomes a glorified karaoke number, with the audience’s voices drowning out any of the backing music.

Grimes: Photo by Nuno Ferreira

In the absence of good friend Aristophanes, Grimes opts to take on vocal duties for the track “Scream” replacing the Mandarin with a no less impressive Russian language version delivering it with an even more intense and ferocious version than offered on the album. Older songs are reimagined throughout the set with heavier “deep cut” versions, complementing the new more bass orientated songs featured on Grimes’ most recent album. “Go”, which Grimes proclaims as her “most controversial song” is nothing more than a sure fire hit tonight, with the audience bouncing up and down with every drop of the chorus.

Grimes: Photo by Nuno Ferreira

Single “Oblivion” is the only track to be performed in its original incarnation but is no less well received with the audience again competing for volume. Omitting a traditional walk-on/walk-off encore due to “stage fright” Grimes goes straight into track “Kill vs Maim”, the biggest crowd pleaser of the night and ultimately one that shows pop can be made without compromise.