Trump-weary Silversun Pickups make up for lost time in Manchester

Tonight (8 November) sees the Los Angeles outfit’s first show in Manchester for nearly seven years. Back in 2009, they played a July show at a half-full Academy 2 (just up the stairs from tonight’s room) and then delivered a quickfire set in support of Placebo at the cavernous G-Mex in December of the same year. Afterwards, they disappeared.

A proper explanation as to why the band never returned to Europe to tour their third LP, 2012’s Neck of the Woods, has not been forthcoming. These guys are no mugs in America, where said record, produced by major label staple Jacknife Lee, went in at number six. When I interviewed the group’s drummer, Chris Guanlao, last year, he seemed to suggest two things; one, that a less than amicable split with previous label Dangerbird had shorn them of the opportunity to tour internationally, and two, that they were quite happy, in support of last year’s Better Nature, to begin from the ground up again on the other side of the Atlantic.

Guanlao is apparently as good as his word because the venues Silversun Pickups have been hitting up on this particular tour are less than salubrious to put it mildly. Club Academy is quite literally the scruffy room in the basement of the University of Manchester’s Student Union. On Sunday, they played a dive bar in Leeds. It is worth noting that this lack of glamour was not reflected in the ticket prices - it was £30 on the door tonight - but the willingness of a band who are a big deal back home to eschew shortcuts is undoubtedly admirable.

That’s because, when it comes to the crunch, Silversun Pickups are not a band you’re supposed to hear in mono and view in standard definition. Right from 2007’s Carnavas, their magnificent debut LP, this is a band that’s positively screamed out for arenas. Since Lee took over behind the desk for them, some of the subtlety and nuance that made both their first album and its follow-up Swoon so special has been cut away, but it’s also accentuated their positives in other places - take the screeching drama of opener “Cradle”, for example, or the devastating bombast of “Nightlight”.

A slew of old classics make the cut, too. Nikki Monninger is a delightful presence on bass just for her bouncy, perma-grinning demeanour, but delve into the songs and you realise she’s such a key part of proceedings, from her starring turn on “Circadian Rhythm (Last Dance)” to the atmospheric throb of her part on Carnavas deep cut “Three Seed”, which turns up during the encore. Guanlao, too, is due individual credit; sure, his insistence on hoisting his crash cymbal a good foot above his head does exaggerate the physicality of his performance, but it isn’t strictly necessary. The man’s a force of nature.

As alluded to earlier, this is an evening with a heavy, election-shaped cloud hanging over it for the Americans, and as they close out the main set, and then the encore, with “Lazy Eye” and “Kissing Families” respectively, the ever-sharp Aubert has a request of us. “Trump’s not going to win tonight,” he announces to cheers. “But if he does, can we come live with you?”