CUPIDS Gig Review // AATMA Manchester
CUPIDS play a headline show at their hometown AATMA.
Down the alley in Manchester’s Northern Quarter is where Cupids are headlining on a Friday night. AATMA (previously the Kraak Gallery) is a 150 capacity venue what makes every gig a personal, sweaty and glorious experience. A perfect place for a band like Cupids to be performing. With their politically and emotionally charged lyrics, or simply drunkenly relatable, and a raw energy that leaves people hooked on melodies smaller venues are where they thrive. For now..
After a Bee-Gee’s-esque supporting band NUDE who warm up the evening, the atmosphere is slightly relaxed, perhaps the calm before the storm in a lack of better words. With people sporting Cupids‘ badges dotted around, along with the band themselves mingling, you can’t escape the feeling of anticipation held in the air.
No-one Talks opens the set with massive guitars and lyrics that portray our society perfectly. This middle finger up at the state of today and all those who try to stop them from talking about it, gets the crowd politely shaking their hips to the drums and drinking slightly faster. In the results – movement and booze!
The set goes on and they continue to rip through all my already high expectations of seeing them headline. The co-vocalists Sid Cooper and Jake Fletcher interchange between the keys and guitars throughout the set, whereas the rhythm section (Ryan Comac and James Cardus) keeps it real cool and collected on the other half of the stage. All that makes the songs like Adult Terrors and Good Things easily captivating with the hardcore fans at the front boogying, regardless of sweat dripping on their best tops.
This gig seems utterly natural and personal. This might be thanks to Cooper’s awkward talking between the songs when he introduces the members of the band one by one, as professionally as a northerner can, before popping over to the keys, a beer can in one hand. Breaking into Heaven knows me now, Fletcher’s guitar sounds like a sitar making the genre slightly switched what however does not effect the band. They still radiate the same identity and sound showing that the music can be as experimental and reversed as they please.
Surfing to the end of the set on an array of noise, an instinct and stage lights, the second to last song Kickin In lives up to it’s popular reputation and all gathered at the AATMA are loving the care-free energy it gives off. With the crowd being not as lively as Cupids’ crowd normally is, it takes no toll on the band’s stage presence. Depicting the potential they’ve got, regardless of whether the audience is enthusiastic or not, the performance is certainly worth far bigger venues.
Finishing off the way they started, another fucking brilliantly worded song about Manchester, money and life problems, Money, that delves in and out of climaxes and blares before the end of the set. Money, and out. The crowd is cheering away whilst Cupids are making their way down off the stage.
Words and photo: Emilia Castle
