Review: The Slow Readers Club revel in Dublin’s warm embrace
Great gigs, like truly amazing gigs, are not just shows but experiences. This was one such occasion.
They become pure escapism and for almost two hours on Saturday night, the several hundred people who packed into The Academy on Dublin’s Abbey Street to see Manchester-band The Slow Readers Club were involved in such an experience.
Nearing the end of a successful European tour to promote their latest album ‘Knowledge, Freedom, Power’ , the ‘Readers’ as the crowd delighted in calling them were firing on all cylinders.
The opening track, Modernise’, off the new album, is a belter and it was clear immediately that both the band and audience were up for it.
Singer Aaron Starkie is as convincing a front man as has come along in years and possesses a compelling presence on stage that is up there with Morrisey in his hey-day.
On the go since 2009, the Readers (brothers Aaron and Kurtis Starkie, James Ryan David Whitworth) also have a back catalogue that most bands would bite your arm off for and the set list was carefully constructed to highlight the best of the new album as well as their earlier material.
Their third studio album Build A Tower was a UK Top 20 hit album reaching number 18; and its follow up The Joy of the Return made it to the Top 10, peaking at number 9 in March 2020.
These are no fly by nights. This is a proper band.
A highlight of the night was ‘Afterlife’ which Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said it “deserves its place in the pantheon of great Manchester anthems.”
High praise indeed.
Other songs like Plant the Seed and You Opened up My Heart were captivating and Starkie’s voice soared.
In such songs, the Readers show why they are simply the best practitioners of that kind of high-tempo, high octane stadium rock music on the go today.
If there was a gripe, it would be this. The band clearly use some element of backing tracks for their beefy synth parts, and this acts as a limiter to what would be natural points to ad-lib and interact with the crowd.
The one occasion the band did improvise was at the end of the catchy epic tune ‘On the TV’ which was a delight.
One would love to see Starkie fully unleashed.
The encore set of ‘I Saw a Ghost’, ‘Knowledge Freedom Power’ and the anthemic ‘Lunatic” were blissful and an amazing ending to the night.
Starkie let it known that Dublin has “been very good” to the band and ‘Lunatic’ had its debut in Whelan’s back in 2018.
There was also a political dig at the end of the show when bass player Ryan took to the microphone to bemoan the seizure of a bunch of the band’s merchandise on arrival into Dublin because of Brexit. He left no one in any doubt where his anger lay calling on the British Government to “sort it out”.
This is a band who really should be playing much larger venues such as this, but the intimacy of the gig and the superb sound quality made it such an occasion.
They simply are that good.
9/10
