For Justin Vernon, the road back to Manchester has been anything but straightforward. When he last headlined this venue, almost a decade ago in November of 2012, his success story was already an unlikely one; the making of his 2007 debut album, which saw him retreat to a remote cabin in his native Wisconsin to pick through the ruins of a failed relationship, became the stuff of indie legend, and when he expanded the sound on the sweeping, atmospheric Bon Iver, Bon Iver in 2011, he similarly broadened his fanbase, bringing mellow indie folk to the least likely of surrounds - cavernous arenas and massive festival stages.
It certainly seems as if Vernon took his ascension to this size of room as vindication of his bolder creative choices; in the ten years since he was last in town, he has confounded expectations at every turn, collaborating with royalty in the worlds of pop, hip hop and indie rock (Taylor Swift, Kanye West and The National, respectively) and producing a third album, 22, A Million , that seemed wilfully oblique, in everything from its sharp left turn into glitchy electronica to the near-impenetrable stylisation of its track listing (song titles included ‘10 d E A T h b R E a s T’ and ‘21 M◊◊N WATER’).
He even chose to eschew bigger cities on that record’s UK tour, joking from the stage at Blackpool’s Opera House in 2017 that travelling fans from Manchester far outnumbered the locals.
