Making animals of their crowds, the supergroup ‘Better Lovers’ have
stormed through Manchester on their UK tour with unrelenting force. Endless
amounts of crowd surfers even when the band wasn’t playing is a testament
to the energy of the band that they bring to each sweat-soaked show they
play.
Exploding onto the stage with ‘Lie Between The Lines’ the boys immediately
made sure they got up close and personal despite the barricade with plenty
of visits to the barricade and of course on top of the crowd. Greg Puciato
turned said crowd into a choir for the chorus of ‘Sacrificial Participant’
Each member of ‘Better Lovers’ demonstrated incredible crowd work with
everyone attending hanging onto to every word, note and command of the
stage, as demonstrated by guitarist 'Jordan “Goose” Buckley’ standing on a
monitor turned upwards screaming, “CIRCLE PIT, CIRCLE PIT!” into
Puciato’s microphone.
For a band that began playing with only one original song written and now
touring their first album, ‘Highly Irresponsible’, the hype is very real with this
collection of veterans in the rock and metal circuits. Adding to the marketing
of the new albums vinyl and merch variants, the band had also teamed up
with ‘spookyvibesfx’ to release a ‘Better Lovers’ themed Night Terror
Overdrive guitar pedal that was used on the recordings of the album. A
chance for guitarists to have the beautiful and vibrant artwork of ‘Highly
Irresponsible’ on their boards, at least for those who got their hands on the
limited run of them before they all very quickly sold out.
The experience under the belts of all members of this outfit is apparent
through the pin point accuracy of every note and tempo change,
demonstrated incredibly through song eight of the set, ‘The Flowering’.
Every song in the set felt like a test of the crowds endurance, with the only
respite being fifteen seconds of the intro to ‘God Made Me an Animal’ an
it’s calmer forty second bridge section. ‘Better Lovers’ are an all or nothing
band that will try their very best to annihilate everyone in their vicinity.
Following ‘Love as an Act of Rebellion’ all bets were off and it was time to rip
into their debut single ’30 Under 13’, clearly a measure to finish off
survivors of the set, and that they did. Crowd surfing was the only escape
from the never-ending chaos of which there was an endless supply of from
the first to last note
Electrifying-chaos is an under statement to describe the nature of a ‘Better
Lovers’ show. They definitely are a must-see band who are most likely going
to have a long and exciting life ahead of them.
Words: Andrew Magennis
Photos: Nik Bryant
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