Maybe, just maybe, the pressure of a homecoming gig was getting to Wu Lyf. A voicy Mancunian crowd failed to have their enthusiasm dampened by the quite bizarre New Romantic singer on warm-up duty. Immediately after his departure, choruses from the main act’s best-loved songs could be heard ringing around the infamous Ritz. Then the protagonists walked onto stage; then launched straight into “L Y F”. Smooth as.
And the band do play with a unique brand of verve and swagger. Take guitars which ring with Chameleons-esque beauty, drumming as atmospheric as anything you’ll see live in Britain, and a distinctively-quiffed singer with a voice of gravel and synths which fulfil the role of an organ. If that doesn’t sound like a recipe for a great live band, just listen to their debut album Go Tell Fire To The Mountain.
Because that record has a sound which so easily translates into arena rock, it would have almost seemed like a cop-out of this set simply consisted of Wu Lyf playing the songs – so it’s to their credit that they mixed things up a bit. Blending “Spitting Blood” into the rousing “Dirt” was a great touch (never will a crowd chanting lyrics like “World unite, I’ll love you forever” feel less cheesy).
Better yet was a quite unexpected cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”. As enjoyable as it can be for a band to cover a song close to their own sound, and which may have greatly influenced it, covering something different forces artists to leave that comfort zone and put some creative effort into making the song their own. It really is hard to describe how well lead singer Ellery Roberts reinvents the vocal delivery, or how the band take elements of the original song and create something less poppy but still emotional; so check out the footage below of them performing the song in Paris.
As a personal favourite, “Concrete Gold” was a real highlight, but the real show-stopper was the band’s anthem “Heavy Pop”. If there was one criticism I’d have of the set, is that it was often too perfect. The band had made some effort to stop the set from being a straight-up play of their album, but the fact that their sound so easily translated into live music left it missing the lovable imperfections that all great live bands display. Not so during “Heavy Pop”. The occasion seemed to get to Roberts, but in a good way, with layers of emotion tinging his idiosyncratic vocal delivery, gripping the audience in a way that nothing else had done on the night.
This may have come from the feeling of playing a gig in the band’s hometown, something the band expressed halfway through the gig when overjoyed to see familiar faces (there’s no way Roberts speaks like that in real life; today’s musicians don’t have time to smoke as many cigarettes as Tom Waits did). It’s true that Wu Lyf have a special relationship to their local fans – you couldn’t think otherwise, listening to the crowd’s rendition of “We Bros” after the quartet first left the stage. Of course, they were duly appeased.
The music that Wu Lyf create feels worthy of bigger things; they may be too anti-mainstream for big arenas and festivals, but who couldn’t see them playing during sunset at Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage? They’ve gained a lot of respect on tour, but to be universally loved as they are in Manchester they need to discover an x-factor to accompany their impeccable talent. As things stand, they’re merely one of the most exciting young bands around right now.
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