Yo La Tengo

The Ritz, Manchester | March 21st

When The Ritz isn’t hosting a crowd who’re partial to Jägermeister-fuelled street brawls, it can also provide a fine setting for legendary guitar bands. For most, Yo La Tengo need little introduction. The indie rock royalty’s discography, which ranges from acoustic ballads to monolithic sonic wipeouts, has been remarkably consistent since their mid-eighties inception.  Now they’re touring their 2013 release Fade, a collection of autumnal feeling pop tracks that are layered with trademark harmonies.

Playing underneath a canopy of carved theatrical awnings and disco balls, Yo La Tengo played two sets; one acoustic, the other electric, in a bold attempt to encompass their extensive style. Opening with Ohm, the acoustic set sailed along in a chilled out, meditative manner , dipping between intense emotional balladry in Cornelia and Jane to the atmospheric Big Day Coming lifted from their exceptional 1993 release Painful. However, it was following the crossover from the acoustic to electric set that the band really nailed it, brutally kicking Crack’s ass with a savage contamination of Stupid Things, which was hurtled among cascading garage licks and full-blown noise freakouts, all beautifully counterbalanced against the clockwork-like stability of the bands’ backbeat. Indeed, this laceration occurred for a solid hour before the band finally eased off, drawing the night to a close with a cover of William Devaughn’s Be Thankful For What You Got, a fitting finale from a band so comfortable in their sounds that after over quarter of a century since their formation, are still at the top of their game.

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Words: Alex Hall