Live Review: Those Damn Crows - Academy 2, Manchester
18th February 2023
Support: James and the Cold Gun, Valhalla Awaits
Words & Photos: Rich Price Photography
Ahh Manchester’s o2 Academy 2, if ever a photographer would consider a venue to be escalated to the heady heights of a bone fide nemesis, then this would almost certainly be mine. Eager to find out what particular set of weird and wonderful restrictions would be laid out this time I head up the stairs.
Some backstory dear reader, every time I have been to this particular venue then we are faced with some new way in which we should be there. Often it’ll be a switch from stage left to stage right with no prior warning. This time we had to absolute masterstroke that I should have approached the venue from an entirely different staircase. The one we are not usually allowed to go near. Ahh, tonight is going to be an interesting one.
Opening band Valhalla Awaits were impressive, solid hard, good punchy riffs, and some good onstage banter meant they had the crowd on their side in no time at all. Playing the old trope of Leeds being better at clapping than Manchester, presumably, this is down to the extra fingers, to get the rammed venue firmly onside.
These were genuinely enjoyable, and the singer has a really good voice on him to go with that stage presence. Following the first free songs, the Academy decided as they often do that photographers should not only be not allowed to even glimpse the band, they should not really be able to hear them either. So we were made to leave the venue out of the back and stand in a cupboard. After a lengthy explanation to the security guard, they deemed I could walk around the outside of the room and stand at the very back to gather the rest of what I needed for my review. This was not in any way shape or form helpful.
After deftly negotiating my way around the outside of the venue I then witnessed the second band, James and the Cold Gun. A revelation, pure rock and roll shapes and swagger combined with sartorial elegance. After some tense negotiations, I managed to convince the security that in order to do my job and review the set I would definitely need to hear the rest of the set, so I was allowed to remain in the venue after the 3-song allowance was up.
Definitely, worth the effort, I spent a while trying to work out whom they reminded me of, to keep being brought back to a definite albeit possibly tangential relation to the pixies. Great songs, although the voices could have benefitted from being a little higher in the mix. Seemingly amazed by the number of people in the sold-out venue they took time to take some pictures of the crowd with which they could later impress their nans. Definitely a band you should check out.
Important to note is that the same security I’d had to negotiate with not that many minutes prior, were taking pictures on behalf of the crowd and even went out of their way to get one of the younger concert attendees a signed set list. Showing that despite whatever disagreements people may find themselves in, people are inherently good.
All photo credits: Rich Price Photography
