Manchester Academy 1, 14 December 2010

A few months back I listened to an album for the first time and then put on repeat before adding to my pile of potential ‘best-of-year’ albums. The band was The Pretty Reckless, the album was LIGHT ME UP, and the style was rock of the heavy but melodic type. Since receiving it I’ve played around half of the songs on our radio shows with plenty more to play - there’s ten songs and all ‘killer’. The band has a young female lead singer who also wrote and co-wrote the album songs.

I didn’t delve into the band’s background but when I eventually did some time later I was very surprised to find out that Taylor Momsen, the band’s lead-woman, was barely seventeen years of age and has featured in the USA TV hit show Gossip Girl. Momsen claims she had been thrown into the world of modelling and acting while really wanting to be a rock musician all along. The band released two singles earlier in the year (’Make Me Wanna Die’ and ‘Miss Nothing’) which charted well and generated a couple of important ‘Live Lounge’ sessions with BBC Radio 1 which won acclaim from the station’s audience. A third single has recently been released (’Just Tonight’) and doubtless will chart highly.

It was during the Live Lounge broadcast that I found out that the band was touring in December which prompted a desperate search for contacts to secure coverage of the Manchester Academy concert on the 14 December. Mission accomplished and on the night driving past the venue saw the longest queue of fans
I have ever seen at a gig there. The show had been moved from the smaller University 1,000 capacity venue to its largest 2,000 plus venue due to unremitting demand for tickets. The show was a sell-out and is an example of what BBC R1 coverage can mean to an act playing the kind of music not usually played on R1 airwaves.

The audience was heavily female and surprisingly ranged in age from about 12 to 20. There were parents in the venue with their children and many waiting outside in their cars to take thier kids home. And included many kids who probably for the first time had been to a heavy rock show! Opening support came from a new and young UK five-piece rock band called Francesqa who I have never heard of but were obviously familiar to the young audience who gave them a rousing welcome. In recent months I’ve noticed headliners using very poor support acts, but for this show I had no such complaints. What the audience got was a charismatic and skilled lead-man, tight heavy rock band, some decent tunes and a strong work ethic that translated into an explosive 30 minutes of music.

The set for The Pretty Reckless was simple and effective consisting of a number of large lit crosses at the back of the stage. At 9:30 the band members tropped onto the stage without lead-woman Momsen which heightened audience tension to fever pitch. Roughly a minute later Ben Philips on lead guitar announced her arrival to one of the loudest receptions I’ve ever heard at a rock concert. The band has gone through a complete change of band members over the last twelve months and I began to wonder whether this was just a vehicle for Momsen - the opening to this show certainly seemed like it.

On she came looking tall, slim, blonde and frankly devestating. She reminded me of a young version of Courtney Love and even sounded like her… Nerves? Forget it, this lady oozes confidence and enthusiasm for what she does. Straight into attack mode with the aggressive, ragged and rough sound of  ‘Since You’re Gone’ which is not my favourite album track but its powerhouse rhythm made it a fabulous opener. The band sounded great while Momsen sounded perfect and designed to rock.