By Desh Kapur, Rock At Night Manchester

Venue Cymru, Llandudno, North Wales-22^nd November 2018-THE COURTEENERS W/ Gerry Cinnamon

It was a sold out Venue Cymru for the visit of Manchester legends, The Courteeners. The venue was already full when the much talked about Scottish balladeer, Gerry Cinnamon took to the stage with only an acoustic guitar and a bank of spotlights behind him for company.

Gerry Cinnamon comes with a bit of a reputation, selling out venues all over Scotland, being the first unsigned artist to sell out the iconic Glasgow Barrowlands and then being inducted into the Barrowlands Hall Of Fame with David Bowie, Oasis, Primal Scream and Ocean Colour Scene; very esteemed company indeed.

So to chants of “Gerry, Gerry Cinnamon” the man of the moment strode on to the stage, and then strummed, sang and weirdly giggled through a set of acoustic indie pop and the crowd seem to love every minute of it. It was impressive to see an unsigned artist from Scotland with hardly any airplay have so many fans in a Welsh seaside resort. But with that said did he deliver on the reputation that had come before him. Hhmmm I’m not so sure.

So it was time for the main event, The Courteeners. Formed in 2006 and consisting of Middleton lads, Liam Fray, Michael Campbell and Daniel “Conan” Moores, they strode onto the stage and brought the house down before they had even played a note, a sign of things to come! From then on it was a stream of anthemic indie rock, taking in flavours of Arctic Monkeys, the Libertines, the Smiths and of course Oasis. The Courteeners play Indie Rock…yes… but its Liam Fray’s lyrics that lift them above so many other Indie Rock bands. They are full of life observations, semi biographical working class stories that we all identify with, and that is one of the reasons why this band is so revered in the North West.

The set takes us through all 5 albums, including 2 of my favourite Courteeners tracks, Acrylic and Cavorting. The crowd rocked and sang along, loving every minute, and all the tracks they wanted to hear were getting an airing, “Small Bones”, “Please Don’t”, “Modern Love”, and the classic “Not Nineteen Forever”.

The Courteeners are a bit of an enigma, really. Their shows sell out in the North West and they recently sold out Heaton Park in Manchester, to the tune of 50,000, impressive stuff. But being legends and icons around Manchester hasn’t really spread to the rest of the country, quite weird really, but I think they’re starting to catch on. On their last tour the band sold out venues in Glasgow and London. Maybe they won’t be Middleton’s own for very much longer.