Night & Day Cafe
26 Oldham St
Manchester
M1 1JN
We been to a few gigs in between Jesca Hoop (the last gig update) and this one with Shonen Knife. There was Emma Ruth Rundle at Soup Kitchen, Julian Baker supporting Belle and Sebastian at Bridgewater Hall, Editors at Manchester Cathedral, DJ Mag Bunker presents Contact.
So, here we are in Manchester, at one of the last remaining decent music venues. There was a chat with the manager the following day about the gossip this place nearly got shut down due to gentrification and greedy landlords. Look, if you want to move into the city centre great! However, don’t complain about the noise, it is after all, the city centre. So, if you choose to live above a loud venue with its peek times being a Friday and Saturday night, then more fool you.
This gig was a so much fun. It was the right level of cheese, nostalgia and good old entertainment. You might agree that its very rare just to go somewhere and have fun, you don’t have to take the experience in too deeply and critique how the sound was appalling or how the bands music just doesn’t seem to resonate as it did the first 2 albums.
I imagine I brought Brand New Knife, in Camden, London at a now closed down record shop, because on my adventures into London, living outside of the capital, I stumbled upon this record shop and they had a Japanese section. It was very small, but that was a gate way to real Japanese music, pre(ish) internet and anime soundtracks. So my love for Shonen, if truth be told, was more a fling with the orient. I loved the whimsical nature of the music and its pop-ish elements and it was a lot more light-hearted in comparison to a lot more of the ‘serious’ music I was and still listen to then and now.
So for me, this gig was like meeting an ex whom you had a good time with so many years ago and decided to hang out for the evening, playing catch up on the years apart (ie- I never brought anything from them since 2000..maybe?). I wish I had though, so I could sing along with some of the songs. It was surprising to see the turn out, which became nearly a full house and even started a mini mosh pit, which was bizarre and confusing , given the music was so playful and kawaii. However, all being said and done, SK were real entertainers and for me Risa, the drummer, was the star of the show. Always smiling, banging away at those drums, she could have bottled and sold that happiness.
Words | Fotos : Alex Romain, 2018
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