Manchester Orchestra - Corner Hotel, 14 November 2014

Night two of Manchester Orchestra didn't quite reach the heights of night one. They seemed to have got the message from night one (or maybe just wanted to mix things up) and dropped the long quiet encore with Kevin Devine. But the crowd were pretty obnoxious, constantly yelling out song requests or general stupid comments, which clearly didn't go down well. I didn't see the written setlist, so I don't know if this was planned, but the show only ended up being an hour and a quarter, and I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped some songs so they could get out of there.

Having said all that, they barrel through quite a few songs, and the set isn't bad so much as not as good as night one.

Pride
Shake It Out
Pensacola
Pale Black Eye
Every Stone
The Mansion
I Can Barely Breathe
I've Got Friends
Everything to Nothing
Cope
Simple Math
I Can Feel a Hot One
42 (w/ Kevin Devine)
Sleeper 1972

Top Notch

https://mega.co.nz/#F!NMVyzRbZ!uaVc5vY-hPTIDr4uOgHpZw

Manchester Orchestra - Corner Hotel, 13 November 2014

Unfortunately my old recorder has been havingsome problems, so I've had to replace it. This was the first show with the new unit, and although it's not quite as convenient as the last one, the sound quality is better and it has some features that should prevent some of the bad recordings I got in the past.

Manchester Orchestra put on a pretty good triple bill with Kevin Devine and local band Apes (I'll put those sets up soon). The show itself was slightly odd. The set was amazing and the band seemed to be enjoying it. But they totally lost the crowd for the encore. It probably hurt that they didn't really play any 'hits' and the songs with Kevin Devine were pretty slow. People ended up just leaving, and those that stayed started talking a lot, which comes through in the recording. This is still a good set, but the encore stops me from recommending it more strongly.

Top Notch
Shake It Out
Pensacola
Every Stone
The Ocean
100 Dollars
I Can Barely Breathe
I've Got Friends
Colly Strings
Everything to Nothing
Cope
Simple Math
I Can Feel a Hot One

Wolves at Night
42
You're a Mirror I Cannot Avoid
Pyotr (aborted)
Where Have You Been?
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air

https://mega.co.nz/#F!JQNyXYDY!_4WjicRmMV4bkAIpPO0pAA

Manchester Orchestra - 7 March 2012, The HiFi

I'm slowly working my way through the backlog of shows that have built up over the (musically) hectic summer months (next up will be John Fogerty since there seems to be lots of people looking for that one).  Otherwise the shows will be going up in chronological order, and the oldest show I have at the moment is this Manchester Orchestra gig.

There was a weird vibe at this show - for some reason the HiFi seems to attract a bunch of punters who are, frankly, cocks. At this show they seemed to be mocking both the band and the crowd, which was weird (unless your aim is to ruin the show).  The band seemed to be in a weird mood to begin with, so this didn't help.  Despite all this, the show wasn't bad, it just seemed like a night where the band would rather have been doing other things, but turned in a solid professional performance nonetheless.

Set wise, I think they're probably one good album short of a really killer set.  They played a bunch of great songs, but the set didn't seem to flow together very well, feeling a bit flat at times.  It might be that their set choices are to blame, but they did a good job of ensuring a pretty killer encore.

Fortunately, the annoying punters aren't audible in the recording, which is, if I do say so myself, another very good one.  This was a good show, thats worth a listen, but I get the feeling that these guys could be a really great band, but they aren't quite there yet.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ycjs4c0id0oz7