Everybody Wants to be their Friend
This time last year we’d seen a lot of Sixnationstate, a heavy gigging schedule and regulars on the festival scene they were hard to ignore. They followed that with a highly impressive and well received debut album before retreating back to the canals of the south to work on new material and take a well earned break. Tonight we’re taking the opportunity to hear some of the new songs at Manchester’s Ruby Lounge as they support White Denim on a short UK tour.
They kick off with the first of several new tracks and it’s clear that they haven’t lost the knack of pulling out a great melody. They look a bit sharper than a year ago, probably down to a few haircuts but they’ve lost none of the energy or enthusiasm that always oozes forth at a Sixnationstate gig. There’s a good crowd in the Ruby Lounge, certainly the most we’ve ever seen for a Manchester gig and they go down a storm. Of course they throw in a few old favourites such as ‘So Long’ and ‘I Hate the Summer’ and it’s good to hear them but tonight is all about the new songs and there’s a good variety on offer. Recent download ‘Your Money or Your Life’ centres around well worked harmonies and is very laid back but it breaks the set up nicely and is well received by a growing audience.
Bassist John looks slightly out of it and there are a couple of mistakes but they are quickly laughed off and overall the performance is very tight, something we’ve come to expect. The p.a isn’t great early on and Gerry’s vocals are coming through distorted but it gets sorted out after a couple of tracks. ‘Let’s Make Love’ gets feet tapping and heads nodding with a rousing chorus, guitarist Neil in particular displaying a rare energy. It’s all over too quickly and it would have been nice to hear a couple more of the older songs but we can’t complain, this is exactly the return we wanted 6NS to make with the new material sounding just as strong as the oldies and it all bodes well for the next album. The band have clearly enjoyed it and judging by the reaction of the crowd they could finally have made the breakthrough in the north, not before time.