Live Review

Noah & The Whale – The Ritz, Manchester

• 5th May 2011

At half past nine on Tuesday night The Ritz in Manchester is packed to the brim, wall to wall skinny jeans and cool indie haircuts. Everyone is awaiting the arrival of Nu-Folk heroes Noah & The Whale.
We say Nu-Folk, as that’s the rather awkward label that was given to Noah & The Whale, Mumford and Sons, and Laura Marling when they first arrived on the scene.
However Noah & The Whale can’t really be described as Nu-Folk anymore, the last time I saw them they were all ukuleles and love, love, love… now their sound is more expansive, peppered with synths and altogether more ambitious.
This new approach works best mid set on new single Tonights The Kind Of Night – think Lou Reed covering Badlands with Eno twiddling the knobs. Charlie Fink and Co are bathed in green light as the chugging rhythm carries them forward and works The Ritz into a frenzy.
It would seem strange for Noah & The Whale to abandon the template that has served them so well in the past, especially at a time when the national spotlight seems to be focused on the Nu-Folk scene more than ever before, (Marling and the Mumfords recent success at the Brit awards was a pleasant surprise to everyone) but the more sonically adventurous the Twickenham quintet get, the better they get and the more it suits them in a live setting. Every band needs to evolve for fear of becoming stale. In this case Noah & The Whale are ahead of the trend.
There is of course still room for the old stuff too: A superb, ukulele-less 5 Years Time reminds us that summer is just around the corner and gets one of the biggest crowd responses of the night.
Last Night On Earths closer Old Joy kicks off the encore in spectacular fashion and is followed by a triumphant L.I.F.E G.O.E.S.O.N. Cue hands in the air, mass sing-along. The moment the Ritz had been waiting for, saved for last. Everyone leaves happy and (perhaps more importantly) eager to see where Noah & The Whale will go next.