Now that Matt Skiba's substitute stint in Blink 182 has come to an end, it is time for Alkaline Trio to once again take the full extent of his attention. Over a warm mancunian weekend they have managed to sell out the Ritz for a second time on this particular jaunt around the shires despite competing distractions such as Radar festival (which ROCKFLESH are also covering, review HERE) and two comic cons. Over the years Alkaline Trio have matured into the thinking person’s pop punk outfit, swapping the junivality of Blink 182 and playground politics of Green Day for a much more cerebral take on the genre. 

The special guest slot this evening goes to Lowlives, who are somewhat of a supergroup featuring former members of bands such as The Defiled, No Devotion and The Ataris. They bring their grunge tinged hard rock to the stage and immediately have the crowd in the palm of their hands. By the end of the set the now packed out Ritz are loving the show and It is guaranteed that they have a bunch of new fans after this evening, including your veritable author. Anyone who has a taste for bands such as Foo Fighters or Alice In Chains are almost guaranteed to find something they like in the material from this band, certainly one to keep an eye on. 

Now for the main event. This tour is in support of the latest album “Blood Hair and Eyeballs” so the crowd are expecting to hear plenty from this album, including set opener ‘Hot For Preacher’ and others such as ‘Bad Time’ and ‘Break’. But of course they throw in crowd favourites such as ‘We’ve Had Enough’ which is despenced very early into the evening (which the crowd goes wild for). 

The crowd intensity doesn’t stop for the whole set, it’s clear this band have some die hard fans and they’re all here tonight. The crowd are even treated so some deep cuts including the rarely played ‘Stupid Kid’ which the crowd gives an incredible response. it is obvious that now Matt is not juggling two positions he can pour his all back into his day job. Former Rocket From The Crypt skin pounder Atom Willard may be a new acquisition but he has actually been here before, having filled in way back in the early noughties. This previous experience means that he is fitting in nicely.

The passion from the band is clear from the moment they took to the stage to when they left it after the 19 song set, before returning for an encore of ‘Radio’. Breaking the mould of ubiquitous 3 song encore, they only do the one but the passion and intensity was the same and no one in this crowd is left disappointed. 

This evening shows that even after over 20 years the passion is still there and the band are still having the time of their lives on that stage, here’s to many more years of Alkaline Trio shows, just please don’t leave it so long to return to the UK.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Alkaline Trio + Lowlives