Live Review: Footprints In The Custard – Manchester

With the release of their latest “Live. Laugh, Lads” EP, Footprints in the Custard decide to have a launch party the same day at Rebellion in Manchester, and who knows what to expect at one of their gigs!!!

The shenanigans begin with Mike from Scumface doing a quick set of his latest ramblings. Pacing the floor and getting in the crowds faces, which was a joy to watch, he blasted through 24 songs on 20 minutes, with some classics such as “Punch a Horse”, the wonderful song about posh fish and chips “6 Chip Twat” and another about his favourite food “Doner Kebab”.

All highly entertaining, and with the drum machine behind him the pace was relentless and he raised some good points like “Neil Buchanan in probably Banksy” and “What the hell in TikTok?” and my favourite “It’s not Piss”. We even got a song and about his personal hero “Swino the Pig” before he leaves us with songs about the best chippy in the world, in Salford, “Chuns Chippy” and then the fabulous “Rock and Roll sometimes and Party Occasionally” dedicated to all the old people in the room.

Following that chaos was I Am The Wreckage who invite the crowd assembled at the bar to “get the fuck down here” before the four piece begin their metal assault with opening track “Violence”. They have a good stage presence and the lead singer keeps the pace high and fast with his good energy.

“Are you enjoying yourself Manchester? We are going to play an old song” as they dive headlong into “I was just a passenger to the Getaway Driver, which was an excellent song as the manic bass player stands atop his amp. They play a new song, “Your Life is a Lie”, which has a heavy as hell intro and then during “I am not Gonna Die Sober” the bass player, who must run a marathon each time they play, as he’s relentless, plays most of the song running around the crowd.

They then play “Veneer of Vanity” which feels more controlled in their playing but you can sense the hardcore beats coming through, and they end with the crazy “Ocelot Revolver” to bring an end to an excellent set.

Next up to the stage are scouse thrashers Reaper who introduce themselves perfectly, “We are Reaper and play loud music” before they bury the place in their thrash musings. The solos are fast and frenetic and you can see the crowd enjoying themselves. “We are going to play a lot of fast shit, are you ready for that?” as they launch into “Jericho”, which has everything that a decent thrash song needs, with some cracking solos throughout.

They are going down well with the crowd, who are enjoying songs such as “Awake”, which is about a car crash apparently, and then they go really heavy with “The Titan” and have another called “In God We Trust” which flies along at a rapid pace. Reaper manage to combine hard rock and a bit of progressive metal into their music which helps to make for some great songs and they end their action packed set with “Afterlife” which has a superb intro and then the crowd join in with a bit of vocals, singing the words back to them, which you can see the band clearly love. A nice moment to end off with.