Through The Lens: BIG|BRAVE @ Soup, Manchester, 9th May 2023

Another belated Through The Lens post when Grey Lantern hosted BIG|BRAVE in Manchester last month. I was lucky enough to catch the colossal noiseniks back in April when they played the Main Stage at this year’s Roadburn, as well as The Terminal Stage in 2022, but I was looking forward to seeing them in a smaller, more intimate venue, and Soup was just the ticket.

For this tour, Robin Wattie (guitar/vocals), Mat Ball (guitar/vocals) and Tasy Hudson (drums), recruited the talents of Liam Williams, known for his time in abrasive noise-rockers My Disco, to play bass and, wow, he gelled with the trio seamlessly helping expand on their already mammoth sound, but whether this is a permanent fixture, only time will tell.

Before they hit the stage, support for the night came from Aicher, a mind-melting experimental, noise and power electronics solo project from the aforementioned Liam Williams, sadly, the handful of photos I did take were unusable as he played on a stage that, at Liam’s request, was in near darkness.

The purveyors of heaviness BIG|BRAVE then took to the floorboards, flicked on their own footlights and flooded the venue with fog, which did make shooting the band difficult, but the atmosphere, it has to be said, was incredible as the now four-piece played a set that was insanely heavy, ear piercingly loud and absolutely crushed Manchester while playing cuts from their latest album nature morte.

Now check out the photos from the night below, which like the recent GNOD and The Shits shots, are the best of a bad bunch, but hey, it was a great night, so zero complaints from The Shaman.

BIG|BRAVE

Photos by: Lee Edwards