Manchester O2 Apollo// 16/05/15
The Alabama quartet bring a taste of the Deep South to Manchester
"AAAAAHHHHH" The first sound to leave Brittany Howard's mouth is a lung-busting scream, a powerful opening gambit that captures the audiences attention before she's even sang a lyric - Don't Wanna Fight kick starts the quartet's final date of their UK tour with raw finesse.
The dummer lead Dunes follows, but it's Brittany's pipes- backed by three backing singers- that takes centre stage, most noticeably on the chorus' refrain "Oh I think I'm losing it."
New cuts Future People and Gimme All Your Love are amongst the raunchiest the band have ever written, with the latter boasting the kind of riffs Jimmy Page would give his Les Paul for. Proving they're not just super-charges soul revivalists Miss You- introduced as 'a song for a man who can't stay out of jail'- slows down proceedings, well at least until the chorus.
The set is primarily made up of material from the band's second album Sound & Colour, occasionally punctuated by by highlights from 2012 debut Girls & Boys (Rise To The Sun, Hang Loose.) Breakthrough Hold On is one of the night's surprising omissions, a testament to the strength of the band's new material. Rather than relying on sure-fire singalongs the band aim to simply stun instead, ending their set with two emotion-soaked slow burners Gemini and Over Your Head, leaving the audience in pin-drop silence, only to be broken by the cheers that follow every one of Howard's trademark "AAAAHHHH"'s.
