Moses Sumney – The Dancehouse Theatre (Manchester 19/09/18)

Eight years on from his debut stage performance, Moses Sumney made his first visit to Manchester last night for an incredible and captivating evening unlike anything I’ve experienced before. The unique nature of the evening was evident even while walking into the Dancehouse Theatre and taking our seats. I had been lucky enough to catch Moses’ perform earlier this year at Field Day Festival and while I remember enjoying his set at the time, the outdoor, daytime setting and even the crowd had all slightly held Moses back. As a result, I didn’t realise just how much more he had to offer until witnessing his Manchester show and the raw intensity of his performance which blew away everyone in the extremely eclectic crowd, including even a heavily pregnant woman in the front row.

The Dancehouse was originally a 1920s cinema and little appears to have changed. Twenty something rows of seats staggered up the steps, made close and compact with a traditional red curtain backdrop, there is no bad seat to have. It felt as though we were sitting down to watch a play rather than a gig. Indeed, the performance turned out to be unlike anything I’ve seen, a musical performance and exploration of sound, testing the full limits of the range on Moses’ unbelievable voice. He zoomed from the most bassy lows to the most angelic high notes without pausing for breath. The sound was pure and the theatre setting meant that, rather than seas of people on phones or shouting along to every word (as I’m used to at most gigs), there was silence. The staging was basic with no fancy backdrop or videos and he wore all black, perhaps referencing his latest EP ‘Black in Deep Red, 2014’ when paired with the simple red curtain behind him. The only real prop was his triple mic-stand which looked like a futuristic lectern, giving off a slightly religious feeling as though he was going to deliver a sermon. Instead he would bash one mic to make a drum beat while screaming into another, layering the music in front of a hypnotized crowd, scared to clap or sing along and interrupt his process. He was in complete control and we sat open mouthed at his vocal gymnastics, at one point completely merging his voice to notes played by the band to the point that you lost track of what he was singing and they were playing. The band, while we’re on the topic, were incredible, creating extremely atmospheric and ambient sound that filled the room and took over all your senses. They shone particularly in the drumming on ‘Quarrel’ which took a funkiness and intensity that I had never noticed before.

Moses was cool and funny, taking the crowds occasional eruptions and declarations of love in his stride and working them into his set, such as answering a call from one fan with ‘I couldn’t really understand what you said but it sounded positive so thank you’, transitioning into discussing ‘Call to Arms’ which he labelled as having no real words. This slick confidence showed the crowd the power of sound above the power of words as we experienced tone without language and Moses proceeded to effortlessly hit inhuman notes and tones in what felt like a modern, gospelised scat. To open his encore, he beautifully covered Amy Winehouse’s ‘I heard love is blind’ which, though far from the original, worked really nicely. He continued his humour with amending his request for the crowd to sing along by saying ‘If you don’t know how to sing just be supportive of those who can’ which got a big laugh form the crowd. He closed his first Manchester performance by saying he didn’t know when he’d be back and joking ‘We’ll always remember this night’, quickly and cleverly turning this line into a little song that transformed into Plastic. We left unable to stop smiling and feeling grateful for having experienced such a bizarrely intense and personal show, while instead Moses left to a standing ovation and the knowledge (I hope) that he had just done something ground-breaking.

By Aaron