‘It is Manchester, on a Friday night’ shrilled Editors frontman Tom Smith as Papillon brought the house down at Manchester Academy.
The band, noted for being inspired by Manchester legends Joy Division, took the sold out crowd on a wondrous voyage through their seven studio albums. One of the reasons the group, who released debut record The Back Room in 2005, still play to such sizey audiences is because of how well they've evolved down the years.
This point was emphasised to great affect during Friday evening’s gig. Those indie anthems Bullets, Smothers Outside The Hospital Door and The Racing Rats were all present and correct.
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But they were complemented by bolder offerings of recent times such as the emphatic Magazine alongside tracks from 2022 album EBM. Of those, Picturesque, Kiss and Karma Climb were set highlights.
Frontman Tom Smith, who is married to radio DJ Edith Bowman, isn’t the most chatty on stage but nonetheless oozes charisma. There’s something quite hypnotic about the way he shimmies and shakes on stage with his movements being far from conventional.
The audience were truly captivated by Smith’s flailing limbs and his unmistakable powerful voice. He belted out song after song with ease alongside his musically tight band.
Editors truly are still one of the best live acts around and more than deserve to be playing to a sold out Friday evening crowd. A truly difficult feat, given what had come before, but they raised the bar during their three-song encore.
The pace and intensity of An End Has a Start carried into Editors’ calling card Munich while the unmistakable synth beat of Papillon had everyone moving, in a manner not too dissimilar to Smith, come the climax of the Manchester Academy gig. Although few could carry off those bobbing sways with such aplomb.
Setlist
- Heart Attack
- Strawberry Lemonade
- Bones
- Karma Climb
- Picturesque
- The Boxer
- Sugar
- Bullets
- Fingers in the Factories
- Blood
- Magazine
- Nothing
- Lights
- Silence
- Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors
- The Racing Rats
- Kiss
- Violence
- No Harm
- Strange Intimacy
Encore
- An End Has a Start
- Munich
- Papillon
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