GIG: Solar Fake (Manchester)

 

Unbelievably, it was five years ago that we last saw Solar Fake, a very memorable night at the Elektrowerkz in London. Since then of course, we've had the pandemic - and since it's nearly 2024 I guess we have to get used to things that were 'prepandemic' being about five years ago...

As Dad (in his infinite wisdom) used to say, you don't want to be going up the motorway on a Friday. Well, he was right of course, and just like last time we went to Manchester on a Friday, the journey up was HELL ON EARTH, only worse this time due to endless rain! It took 4 hours from leaving home to getting there, but at least we managed to find a parking space easily in the car park behind the venue. 

As is to be expected with these kind of gigs, there were plenty of 'interesting' people about, including the girl with the chicken hat, her friend with the spiky white leather jacket and the comedy collar, and of course 'Mr Green'.

We arrived to catch the last song of Auger's set, it sounded okay but nothing spectacular... a bloke in a kilt playing a guitar is literally all I can remember about it.

Thankfully the venue was less packed than when we saw Voivod earlier in the year, but that just meant more room for people to swing their FUCKING backpacks around. This is the one thing I FUCKING hate about electro gigs, fucking arseholes smacking their stupid fucking backpacks into me for the duration, it gave me instant flashbacks to Nachtmahr at Elektrowerkz (a gig that really was ruined for me by these twats).

Thankfully after moving about five times I managed to find a space to stand that wasn't infested by retards and I could enjoy the gig. And a fine gig it was too, albeit the setlist was a bit weak. Solar Fake have tons of really good songs throughout their catalogue, and so many were missing tonight. On the upside the band were great, being both entertaining and engaging with plenty of amusing banter coming from the stage.

We thought the journey home was sure to be better, and it was.... marginally. It only took 3.3/4 hours to get home, due to a stoppage on the motorway and flooding between home and the motorway. Still, 8 hours in the car for a 1 hour show seems reasonable, for a Friday, up the motorway. Never again!