There’s a lot to be said for securing yourself a seat at Manchester’s The Deaf Institute, up the steps with a big fat pint of the finest pale ale and a great view of the live room and the stage beyond. Yes, the prime spot is down on the floor, front and centre, but when you’re hitting quite a few live shows throughout the month, it’s hard to pass up the chance to give your plates of meat a rest.
Fresh off having a song appear on ‘Made in Chelsea‘ in the week, TTSSFU aka Tasmin Stephens (last seen with these eyes on stage playing guitar with Manchester locals Duvet) opened the show, looking mega fresh as she coolly played on a cherry red heart shaped guitar, mouth open wide as she sang the chorus on big single ‘I hope you die’. Dressed in all black, she stood out against the rest of her band of short haired young lads with white shirts and ties, very much capturing the attention of any latecomers like ourselves.
A number of things got in the way as we made our way into town, so we didn’t manage to catch the whole thing, but what we were in the room for sounded top and – looking at her upcoming gigs – hopefully we can catch TTSSFU in a similar sized venue before the rocket strapped to her back fires her sky high. The couple next to us spent the changeover googling TTSSFU, so I’d say that’s job done!
Rather fittingly, a DUDS song played before the arrival of headliners Omni, both bands having shared a stage in Manchester back in 2017 – the first time I caught both live, in fact. We’ve since gone on to catch Omni on many of their UK outings, from Leeds to Liverpool and Manchester many times over. The last time we shared the same space with the Atlanta trio was back in late 2019 off the back of releasing their third album, ’Networker’ – a wonderful occasion in the ‘Pink Room’ of Manchester’s YES venue.
Anticipation was built expertly via the ominous THX sound effect from the pictures (heard in that tooth-shattering clip from ‘The Simpsons’), audio filling the room in deafening fashion. It was the first in a number of humorous interludes throughout the evening, different sound effects and muzak pieces helping to bridge the gap between songs. From modem dialup to ringtones of mobile phones of old (Nokia? Orange?), the theme from ‘The X Files‘, voicemail inbox recordings and hold music (including the incredible hold music that was recently covered by OSEES on their last album ‘Intercepted Message’). At one point someone made a loud vocal request for “AOL”.
It was expected that we’d be hearing a lot of their new album ‘Souvenir’ on Wednesday evening and having hammered the record for a few months solid, this was a plan we could get behind. Surprisingly though, Omni kicked things off with ’Supermoon’ from their 2017 release ‘Multi-Task’, no warm-up required as they looked cooler than the other side of the pillow from the off.
Not long after a run through of the giant ‘Afterlife’ from their debut album ‘Deluxe’, bassist and vocalist Philip Frobos introduced the band and highlighted that they would indeed be taking us back in time, ripping into ‘Moat’ and ‘Courtesy Call’, the latter with its ‘Marquee Moon’-esque guitar parts from Frankie Broyles. It was at this point that Frankie broke a string. Lucky then that they had some hold music to keep things moving, eh? Whilst muzak played and Frankie switched guitars, Frobos urged us to “Hold that thought“. As drummer Chris Yonker laughed at the back and asked Frankie if he was ready, they cut back in where they’d left off in silky smooth fashion and boy did those new strings sound good!
Galloping on the backing track bled into the anthemic good-time that is ‘Equestrian’, Yonker delighting with that disco-punk drumbeat, Frobos power-stancing his way through the chorus and belting it out whilst Frankie was all smiles. He’s back in the room! Somehow the string breaking energised the trio and they shifted gear, with a great bounce on them through ‘Earrings’ as the room vibed. The perfect time then for Frobos to break a bass string. “I fucking called that…” Said a crushed punter behind us. “We’re just rocking too hard guys…” Frobos announced, moving things along sharpish as he fixed himself up and they fired back into it. Boy did those new strings sound good!
Writing succinct bops is the bread and butter for Omni, but on the night they stretched out a few with some lengthy, thrashed out endings, where the three bods really kicked it and let loose. ‘After Dinner’, ‘Skeleton Key’ and recent single ‘INTL Waters’ all pushed through into shred territory and it was a trip seeing the trio blast away, the latter punctuated by great tumble down the stairs drums from Yonker as lights went nuts on stage.
“Think about someone on a ladder putting that shit up there. Precarious. Dangerous.” Said Frobos of the dual disco balls above the crowd ahead of ‘Common Mistakes’, which opens with lyrics of someone doing just that. Earlier in the night, Frobos promised there would be “twists and turns” with cuts from their latest album and as the evening drew in, he announced in a mysterious fashion “consider this your encore”. Big hitter ‘Plastic Pyramid’ marked their last, Yonker playing the female vocal part of Izzy Glaudini rather convincingly as Frobos raised his bass high. Broken strings? No problem, Omni still make this look easy. Another winner in Manchester.
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