With no Manchester Oh Sees show listed until next year, a decision was made this month that I couldn’t go another year without experiencing them live. Cut off from the Californian genre-shirkers for almost two years (not their fault, admittedly), it was nice to have the luxury of choosing where to see them – particularly given both Northern venues were new to us – with Liverpool’s Invisible Wind Factory duking it out with Leeds Irish Centre for our attention last week.
A quick google sealed the deal for the particularly cool looking Invisible Wind Factory – out on the North Docks of Liverpool, the former disused factory was described by The Kazimier (who took it on in 2016) as a “cultural theme park of the future“. Whilst it seemed miles out of town, it was nice still to smell that sea air as I walked over. Inside is a total trip, reminiscent of Pizza Planet from Toy Story, with all sorts of floating, lit up mobiles spinning from the ceiling and slowly rotating fan blades up above the stage like the background to some low res FPS.
Brigid Dawson and her Mothers Network were main support for the evening, her saxophone pricking up our eyes on arrival in the middle of letting loose, whilst Brigid hypnotised from behind the microphone with that familiar voice from all the good Oh Sees cuts. Having appeared on more Oh Sees records than not, last year saw Dawson release her debut proper in ‘Ballet Of Apes‘ and what I manage to catch of her set sounds great, the live band really boosting her vibe.
As a big fan of tie ins, it’s nice to be able to grab an Oh Sees themed beverage from the bar, the ‘Metamorphosed – Dry hopped Vienna Lager‘ coming courtesy of the good people at Carnival Brewing, Pilot Brewery and Fuerst Wiacek (I’m open to sponsorships). It accompanied me right to the front (is he really 30+?!) where the drum kits were being pushed right to the edge of the stage by main man John Dwyer and drummer one of two, Paul Quattrone.
Incense and the smell of burning filled the air as Dwyer himself circled the kits whilst setting up, inviting good energy and protection around the band pre-show and calming things down. He’s safe here, like and a Scouse lad in the crowd lovingly shouted out “Go ed, John lad“. All set up in no time at all, the five up on stage gave it both barrels on the brief soundcheck song (which sounded incredible), an instant indicator of just how loud it was going to be all evening.
“Everybody ok?” Asked JPD of the band and the audience, right before ‘Come From The Mountain‘ exploded into life to open things up good and proper, Dwyer tumbling back and forth like a drunkard, struggling to clutch his guitar as he riffed away, both drummers and the rest of the band locking in.
The dual drumming of Quattrone and Dan Rincon is nuts to watch up close, each different (in lots of ways) but totally together. The pair were proper engaging, each showing off their individual styles on their own mini solo fills on ‘Jettisoned‘, whilst Quattrone brings eye-popping intensity throughout the evening when he stares at his cymbal whilst hammering away. Behind them, keys player Tomas Dolas looked cool as fuck in his beanie and sweater, at odds with the others soon sweating it out – more fitting at a skatepark or catwalk than a high energy, mind-expanding live show. No shade on bassist Tim Hellman of course, I just couldn’t see him!
JPD slammed his head into the microphone stand before a “Thank you, Liverpool” (which happened once, twice then thrice throughout the night). Having never studied them this closely before, it was an enjoyable sight to catch the different dimensions added to their live setup. Dwyer is expressive every other song, often making gurning faces, moving about like a choreographed dance, doing that squat, yoga riffing thing he likes to do and aiming his guitar at the rest of the band, whilst at one point he’s resting his head against the body of the guitar like he’s putting a baby to sleep.
As expected, the pit was energetic throughout their entire set, though not to the point where it became too much (the best kind). Kicking off early on in gigantic fashion with ‘The Static God‘, favourites like ‘Withered Hand‘, ‘Tidal Wave‘ (dedicated to Brigid) and ‘The Dream’ really got everyone worked up, bodies disappearing into the throng on the latter, the joy on the faces of the surfers totally capturing what we were all feeling. ‘The Dream‘ bled into ‘The Daily Heavy‘ without a pause, as Dwyer whipped out the mouth instrument from the song’s intro (that makes my dog go nuts), squeaking away as a body surfed up onto stage, soon propelled back into the crowd.
The big hitters came one after another. Recent screamers like ‘Scramble Suit II‘, ‘Terminal Jape‘ and ‘Electric War‘ were like a blast of water in the face, daft loud and raucous as you like, everyone up on stage hitting out frantic and heavy. Drummer Paul quite rightly towelled off at the conclusion, getting a deserved pat on the back from John. We’re teased with a ‘brand new song‘ which turned out to be the anthemic ‘Toe Cutter – Thumb Buster‘, appropriately received when someone’s Heineken can started spraying like silly string into the crowd with everyone going bananas. Unglued for certain, when Dwyer aimed his guitar into the crowd it was almost in defence.
“Welcome back to the world!” Dwyer shouted, twirling his new tash. I caught myself staring at the energetic frontman at one point, having to snap myself out of it before drool started to form. Out of my stupor, I looked over to my right to catch a bloke doing exactly the same, eyes wide open, mouth agog. Such is the their magic. Roll on the next tour (pandemic allowing…)
(Photo Credit: Titouan Massė)
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