Cult icons Transvision Vamp returned to Manchester for the first time since 1991. The tour sees frontwoman Wendy James and original bassist Dave Parsons joined by Alex Ward (Thurston Moore Group) and Pip Stakem on guitar, Matt Millership on keyboards, and James Sclavunos (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) on drums.
Taking to the stage, the band set the tone with the anthemic ‘Trash City’. As its vocoder-led intro played, Wendy joined the band onstage, greeted by riotous applause. This was followed by their snarling cover of Holly and the Italians’ ‘Tell That Girl to Shut Up’, and crowd favourite ‘I Want Your Love’. I thought the energy was high before, but after that song, it felt galactic.
On record, Transvision Vamp can sound quite polished, but live, there’s a punk edge beneath the synthy sheen, and it really added to the whole experience. Songs like ‘Sister Moon’ and ‘Landslide of Love’ show off a more layered and textured side of the band, while allowing Wendy to demonstrate just how strong her vocals still are.
We were even treated to a couple of songs from the band’s underappreciated third album, Little Magnets Versus the Bubble of Babble. Before playing ‘Pressure Time’, Wendy explained how the music scene was changing at the time, and they “went a bit baggy”.
‘Baby I Don’t Care’ ended the set with a massive bang. Fans sang every word along with Wendy who, before leaving the stage, teased, “If you make a bit of noise, we’ll come back out.”
The crowd were happy to oblige and, after a minute or so, the band returned, going straight into a punked-up version of Wendy’s solo track ‘The Impression of Normalcy’, followed by the playful ‘Bad Valentine’. After telling us they’d “got a nine and half minute number, if you’re up for it”, the band launched into the epic, rarely played live ‘Velveteen’. It was an explosive end to a dopamine-fuelled set.
Support came from Liverpool sibling punks Yee Loi, who I instantly fell in love with. They play fast, rock-and-roll-fuelled punk, and managed to cram an impressive number of songs into their short set!
With their debut album, Flicks, Licks, Party Tricks, on the way, their set featured plenty of yet-to-be-released material, as well as recent single ‘Down in the Bunker’. They’re definitely ones to watch, so get on board with them now before they blow up.