Frome isn’t the usual kind of place you’d see on a tour poster and it’s easy to see why when you drive into the sleepy town. It’s a sentiment shared by an audience member in the Tree House, the sister venue of the town’s other venue, the Cheese and Grain (if there’s others, please let us know!). But that’s the exact point of tonight and the following fourteen shows The Virginmarys are about to undertake. They’re out to continue celebrating the release of their magnum opus, The House Beyond the Fires and this time around, they’re hitting towns which don’t normally feature on your standard tour which has led to a couple of sold-out shows so far (including tonight) and many others on low ticket warnings.
Finding a quiet spot downstairs gives me time to work on last night’s review whilst the new Ghost album blares in my headphones. And despite all the fancy noise cancellation by Marshall and Papa V Perpetua’s dulcet tones, I can still hear the sound check. Tonight’s going to be a loud one. My usual spot at the front secured and my suspicions are proven correctly when The Empty Page kick off their set. I can literally feel the snare vibrate my ear drums and it’s a touch discombobulating to begin with whilst I force myself to ignore it. It doesn’t stop my enjoyment of the show; after the band’s opening set with tonight’s headliners and Eureka Machines just before Christmas, it was a long overdue perfect match. So to see the Manchester trio get the opportunity to fully tour together, it’s a combination which should have happened a long time ago.
Scuzzy, gritty guitars fuse with rumbling bass tones and clattering drums for a mixture of post punk, noise rock and shoegaze for an impassioned set. Lyrically, they’ve definitely got something to say and it’s much in the same vein as the headliners, there’s a belief in it, never pandering for the sake of appealing to the crowd. There’s a great mix of their debut album, Unfolding, along with last year’s excellent Imploding and they even manage to squeeze in a brand-new number. Vocalist and bassist Kel switches her vocal delivery between honey-smooth lilts and venom-laced spitting, always serving the song. Her bass thunders with every beat, high up in the mix and driving the songs on the slower songs whilst Giz’s guitar work which is sharp, jagged yet precise, deftly weaves round it and roars into life on the heavier songs. “Gorge (Oh Well)” is a perfect balance of the two sides to them whilst “Big Nasty Palpitations” and “Cock of the Fifth Year” dials up the aggression. Meanwhile “Dry Ice” pounds and pulses darkly with its hypnotic rhythm. It’s a flawless set from a band who play as hard as their touring partners, their angst is channelled into their music for a scuzz-fuelled performance, never pastiche or po-faced but rather rail against injustice.
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It’s been a quiet start to the year for Ally Dickaty (vocals/guitar) and Danny Dolan (drums) with a couple of shows opening for Shaman’s Harvest and Blacktop Mojo as well as playing at some venue called KK’s Steel Mill, on top of their first gig in several years in Northern Ireland. Regardless, when The Virginmarys hit the stage tonight, they do it with their standard fervour, intent to give the sold-out crowd the best Saturday they possibly can. It’s strange not to see them on opening night but now they’re a couple of days in, you can see they’ve fully entered tour mode and this is one tour they’re not messing around on. Opening with “Just a Ride”, you can already tell they’re on one, anguish and anger in equal measure flowing from the words and guitar.
Whilst the duo are keen to acknowledge their past with mainstays like tonight’s opener, “Motherless Land”, and of course, “Portrait of Red”, they’re keen to focus on the present, still drawing heavily from The Devil Keeps Coming EP and last year’s album. As “Trippin’ New York City” finishes, Ally’s quick to acknowledge his faux pas of forgetting to switch on the LED strip which hangs off his microphone stand. And just as I’m about to sound like the room’s dad and make a Blackpool Illuminations remark, the funky, groove-laden “Northwest Coast” kicks into life. It’s not quite like last year’s tour where every song from The House Beyond the Fires was performed and a few have been shelved for this tour, namely “Lies Lies Lies”, “Dance to the City” and “Urban Seagull” (ironically, the three I constantly switch between naming as my favourite tracks). But what features in their stead more than makes up with it with a couple of cuts from Northern Sun Sessions, neither of which have been played in half a dozen years, if not more. “Flags” puts in an early appearance; it sounds a touch more indie now but it’s still a fearsome beast when it opens up into the chorus, Ally’s roars going head-to-head with Danny’s drumming, enough power in every strike to level mountains. There’s a newfound sense of contentment and closure to it without being fully disengaged from it. Meanwhile, they tease “S.O.S.4.U.N.I” on their intro of “You’re a Killer” and once the biting political commentary is dispensed with, they unleash one of the best songs from the 2018 album. It’s more urgent and rawer than it originally was, a sonic battering ram which is poised to overwhelm everyone in the room.
There’s no shortage of intensity throughout the set, though, both intent on bettering the Swansea and Liverpool shows which preceded it. And watching them, they undoubtedly have. You can tell without even having been to either of those shows. They’re not a band to do the same show night after night; like all the best bands out on the road, each night simply gets better, knowing what works, where to go harder, where to pull back, all the while feeding off a crowd who are clearly up for it, too. It’s always been fuelled by the brotherhood between Ally and Danny, not even needing a look for when one of them needs a second to prepare – they just feel it. The perfect example of this being when one of Danny’s drum legs gives way and he takes a second to sort it. However, it shows his own skill and the consummate professional that he is that whilst this happened during “Running For My Life”, it doesn’t stop him. Every strike of that drum still lands where and when it’s meant to.
If the first half of the set is all about settling in and getting you comfortable, the second half sees the band refusing to come up for air from “White Knuckle Riding” onwards. Latest single “My Nettle’ is boiled in passion, its marching rhythm and chugging riff in lockstep whilst “There Ain‘t No Future” is a supercharged Led Zeppelin number, its gallop much akin to “Immigrant Song”, combined with Ally’s wails. Previous single “When the Lights Go Down” is fast and furious, defiance laced into its very fabric whilst Danny shows why he’s the king of sixteenths with some of his most intricate drumming, showing that he’s not just about power.
Their live show may always be about power and energy but it’s also about emotion and a lot of the time, that comes when they’re going at a breakneck pace. But they can manage to do it on softer moments, too. Danny takes a breather and Ally goes it alone on “Moths to a Flame”. The layers are stripped away and all that is left is raw emotion. It reminds me of a departed friend of many of the people I know from this band, Simon Clapham, a man whose passion and dedication for live music made most others look like amateurs. And given the nature of this tour, you need something a bit unexpected, if completely left-field. The Virginmarys aren’t a band who dabble in covers, especially with the wealth of original material in their arsenal, other than Ally dabbling with the odd Leonard Cohen such as “Everybody Knows” or “First We Take Manhattan”, both of which are great interpretations of incredible songs. Tonight though, Ally introduces this as one of his favourite songs. It’s hard to believe Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” is almost twenty years old. As soon as the sultry rhythm kicks in with the first words, you know exactly what song it is. There’s a menace to it in its verses, now sounding like it could have come from a New Orleans swamp and when the chorus hit, it explodes into life, powered by Ally’s rasps.
It’s a faultless night and for a sell-out, it never feels dangerously busy. The bristling energy allows the band to power through and elevate their performance and as The Empty Page remark both on and off the stage, they’re getting better with every passing night. Sweat is pouring from the pair of them as the final chords ring out before they leave the stage, re-energised, hungry and ready to do it all over again for another fourteen nights. Their sense of purpose has never been greater and for those still to attend the tour, it’s going to be one to remember.
Header image by Debbie Ellis
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