Bastille at the Castlefield Bowl, Manchester.

By Nicholas Howells and Christina Sylvester.

Between June & July, Sounds of the City have lined up a stunning run of 9 shows in 11 days for the city centre. Friday 7th saw the turn of final bosses for modern chart rock, Bastille, to take the stage as they celebrated 10 years since the release of their first album, ‘Bad Blood’.

Photos by Christina Sylvester.

The bowl was already abuzz with Friday festivities, as the fickle weather Manchester had seen this week seems to have made way for a scorcher. Thankfully our strawberry maned opener Michael Aldag is situated very much in the shade, the best place he can be to give it his all.

Michael is literally skipping with joyous energy onto the stage with their band decked out in NFL jerseys which can’t have been the easiest wear in the Manchester heat. His energy is infectious, and Aldag seems the definition of “not taking himself too seriously”, despite the magnitude of this show for his young career. He at one-point cuts a song halfway to check on a member of the crowd, then deciding to scrap the song all together, admitting he “doesn’t even like the song that much”. We love the honesty.

Photos by Christina Sylvester.

Again, Michael knows how to work a crowd very well. The first obvious hurdle here is that he is from Liverpool but keeps the punters on side by gushing about his love for Manchester. As well as that, Michael practically glows with gratitude about Bastille being his reason for even starting a musical career. He launches into the song Bleak and the line “I would be nothing if you weren’t here” somehow seems even more believable. There’s a bit more thought in this setlist that his puppy dog energy would suggest, and we like it. He reminds the crowd to check his new song Cheating on Spotify before letting everyone also hear it here for the first time for most, whilst rumbling through other songs such as Ghosted and Girlfriends.

One thing is certain as Michael Aldag bounces back off the stage to enjoy Bastille from the best seat in the house. He has the crowd in the palm of his hand at this point in his career, at this age.

Photos by Christina Sylvester.

Orla Gartland is next up as the bowl has started to fill up with those who came after the working day finished. She gives them very little time to settle into their seats or take their first sip of their pint as she dives directly into the first song from the moment she reaches the microphone. The pairing of Aldag and Gartland as the supports for this show is almost perfect, as they show the range of Bastille as a band. Gartland is much more the indie rock base that is very much appreciated on a Friday night, with songs like ‘Codependency’ featuring early on the setlist.

Orla actually provides the slowest part of the evening despite having the components of a Nirvana style band on stage if they wanted it. Acoustic guitar in hand, they swing into Why am I like this?, which if you were to look it up on Spotify is a softer listen. Here it was incredibly powerful, the range it had between softer parts and swelling music had a great deal of attention from a slowly rowdying Friday crowd.

Photos by Christina Sylvester.

The line “I saw a girl crying on the train, gin and tonic from the can to ease the pain” seems simple in its recorded form, but at sunset on a Friday night while being overlooked by an actual railway track seems delightfully poignant. If the sun was not still vaguely on us at the time of the set, this would’ve been an absolute spotlight moment for them, as Castlefield bowl seems made for this song and this act.

I had Orla’s presentation noted down as “if you rammed two things I love together at high speed, the band Weezer and Dodie”. Only after the show did I discover that Gartland is actually in cahoots with Dodie for their latest release as the act Fizz. It’s safe to say that Orla’s solo efforts and the combined presence of Fizz mean that she’ll be an ever increasing presence on people's Spotify going forward

Photos by Christina Sylvester.

Bastille are on stage just in time for the sun to set completely, and it takes all the active energy from the crowd and points it directly to the stage almost to the point of hypnotism. A “Bad Blood” cold open video plays that has various moments from the bands off stage antics, all of which are revealed by Dan Smith later on to be from the “Bad Blood” album cycle that they had the good fortune to record. It is spliced in with some small snippets of songs that the crowd have had a couple too many hours of sun and sauce to catch the timing of.

Now, it may have been obvious that Bastille would always come on to Pompei given it was the opening track of the Bad Blood album. But the reception it received as the first song of the night made it seem all the more shocking that the set would start on such a high note. Dan Smith gives us a brief pleasantry of “you orite?” before trying to do just that, launching straight into Things We Lost in the Fire. Seating at the Castlefield bowl becomes very secondary to the matter as everyone seems to be on their feet before the song has even started.

Photos by Christina Sylvester.

In the brief utterances between songs, Smith does quip that the set is track by track and that “you know exactly when to go to the bar” which would be difficult considering how packed in this crowd was. The microphone seems to almost take a backseat during title track Bad Blood when the crowd is also singing everything back to them in the chorus, almost louder than Smith and his backup vocalists can manage. There are moments like this that the band seem to have done too well for themselves, as they bring snippets of stage production like smoke during Overjoyed. This is likely a staple of the normal production that an open air venue like Castlefield Bowl was too bright for the stage lights to cut through with the same effect as their indoor shows, and close situating to rail/water ways of Manchester the wind just blew through it.

That said, absolutely nothing is left wanting in a musical sense as the band bounded into the tracks These Streets and The Weight of Living, pt. II (though you could make a case for them literally bounding into Manchester as the set has at this point drawn out those locals with a view of the stage for some free entertainment). With the continued reception and love they have for this set, it’s impressive to think Bastille have been around for only 10 years, it could be easily double that time. Smith is brimming with one liners each time the band have a second between songs, asking Manchester “Are you ready to jump about a bit?” as though they hadn’t been already. During Icarus, he climbs all the way around the speakers to the edge of the stage, and has a bit of a jump himself with those who have filtered in later on into the show.

This is certainly where the bands involvement with the crowd is at its busiest, as Smith makes his way back to centre stage in time for Oblivion and takes a turn on the keys, as well as pulling double duty as a presenter after the song. He at one point receives an envelope to the stage and it turns out to be a couple in the crowd’s gender reveal. Chris Wood on drums misses absolutely no time for a bit of show business and provides us with a drumroll. “It’s a boy!”.

Photos by Christina Sylvester.

The band give their sincerest thanks to the couple for letting them be part of that moment before giving those in attendance something else to gush about as Smith makes his way all through the crowd for their performance of Flaws before another turn on keys for Daniel in the Den. Laura Palmer gets the oddest cheer of the night as it is introduced as being “about a dead girl off a tv show from the 90s”. If that sounds ridiculous, it serves you right for laughing, as the song ends up being one of the loudest parts of the night for the crowd.

There’s a brief lull in the ‘Bad Blood’ portion of the set, where video plays at the back of the stage, mentioning going everywhere from Kiev and Russia to Coachella. Bastille have always seemed a staple of the UK events scene, but have genuinely been globetrotting substantially in only 10 years. Popularity is part of the game for anyone on that kind of meritoric rise, and it’s a pity for anyone wanting a quiet Friday night, as the bass from Get Home carried right into the ground. Short of being inside the AO Arena itself not too far away, this probably gave KISS a run for their money as singing goes during the “Hidden track” Weight of Living pt.I which the crowd have had 10 years to find and it shows.

Anywhere with setlists has been classing this section as the ‘encore’ yet it was only about halfway through the set, and the band remained on stage in good faith anyway. Deliberations aside, it’s basically a free for all for the remainder “of the night” (wink). They begin with Good Grief, from 2016’s ‘Wild World’, which is a big one for the crowd. The latter part of the set is definitely the rockiest part of the night, Chris Woods drumming during WHAT YOU GONNA DO?? And The Draw is arguably getting louder as the night goes on. Then they seem to dip into the complete antithesis of that by adding a TLC No Scrub medley into the mix during No Angels.

Photos by Christina Sylvester.

The band seem at their best when they are a complete moving target, as the live version of Happier, originally released with Marshmellow went down insanely well. The stage show gets a spruce up with some much more active lighting, which definitely seems more like a Friday night when they play this as the crowd matches the increasing volume and energy. This shows absolutely zero change during Million Pieces, despite it marking the beginning of the end for the set.

Penultimate track Of The Night has the crowd almost completely off their feet, save for one moment. The band do what it seems only great bands can actually pull off and ask everyone to get down close to the ground as the music lulls, before asking them all to jump back up for an amazing visual. Finally, and ironically, they move into Shut Off The Lights as the final song. It’s safe to say it would also be a bright spot in people's calendars as well as we round out night 7 of the Sounds of the City residential at Castlefield Bowl. They have played an absolute blinder with this run of shows and it’s hard to imagine a single soul complaining about that.