I have been following The Broken Family Band since first album "The King Will Build A Disco". Somehow, many years too late, this gig at Klondyke Bowling Club in Levenshulme was the first time I actually saw them live. I've been thinking about this night a lot following the news that The Broken Family Band gigs I'm going to in October will be their last:“After eight happy years The Broken Family Band has decided to give it a rest. We can’t pin it on musical differences, we’ve just decided to quit while we’re ahead. We’ve had a fantastic time being in this group together, and we’re all still friends so we haven’t ruled out doing stuff together in the future. There’s no dramatic ending, but these shows are our farewell to The Broken Family Band. We’d like to thank everyone who’s helped us out and given us so much pleasure since we started, but we’re not going to.”
As well as my first time seeing BFB this was my first visit to the Klondyke Bowls Club in Levenshulme. I remember turning into a seemingly dead-end residential street and thinking "bollocks - we've been sold tickets for a gig in a venue that doesn't exist". Somehow the cul-de-sac led into a rutted gravel path that led into a dimly lit car park and a Scooby Doo haunted house. Well actually the aforementioned Bowls Club. Inside was a proper working man's boozer: darts boards, snooker tables, a dense cloud of cigarette smoke. Is there a BAND playing here tonight??
Well there was in a side room. The room was square, unadorned and frankly in need of paint and TLC. The room had groups of people milling about quite aimlessly. We worked out where the stage might by the fact the milling seemed to be just in one half of the room. There was a barefoot woman lying on the floor too. It was all a bit weird and just didn't feel like a gig was about to take place.
However take place it did. Support was from Soft-Hearted Scientists (gentle Welsh pastoralism - sedate but quietly lovely) and possibly one other band but myself, Mr P and Ms L have racked our brains and cannot remember who it might have been. Whether it was one or two support bands, bare-footed woman continued to lay on the floor in front of the low stage.
When The Broken Family Band took the stage something magical happened. I don't whether it was the music, the crowd or the venue but something definitely changed in the atmosphere when Steven Adams said "Hello Levenshulme ...[dramatic pause]... a phrase I've waited all of my thirty two years to say". Following the laughter that provoked, things just kicked off. The band, despite having just driven up from Cambridge, tore through a set of old favs and songs from "Balls" which was just out. The crowd couldn't get close enough to the band and were dancing and singing deliriously. And everyone, band members, hard-core fans, casual audiences members had smiles on their faces. Possibly even bare-footed woman but I'd lost sight of her in the delirious melee. From the start of the evening which looked like a real non-event this became one of the best and most enjoyable gigs I've ever been too.
At the end it seemed no-one wanted to go home. The band were happy to chat and sign CDs, the crowd just didn't want to leave the room in case the spell was broken. My final memory of the evening was seeing the band after humping their gear through a fire-door into the car park, stick their heads around the door to wave at everyone with big idiot-grim faces. An emotional once-in-a-lifetime event: it was like a wedding, New Year and the best party you've ever been to rolled into one.
And now at the end of October, The Broken Family Band are splitting up. I'll get to see they twice more (once the final show: an invitation-only, fancy dress gig at the Cambridge pub they played their first gig in) and then it's over. But we'll always have the music. And we'll always have Levenshulme.
Those final tour dates are here.
IT'S ALL OVER
THE BOOZE & THE DRUGS
The Broken Family Band
Well there was in a side room. The room was square, unadorned and frankly in need of paint and TLC. The room had groups of people milling about quite aimlessly. We worked out where the stage might by the fact the milling seemed to be just in one half of the room. There was a barefoot woman lying on the floor too. It was all a bit weird and just didn't feel like a gig was about to take place.
However take place it did. Support was from Soft-Hearted Scientists (gentle Welsh pastoralism - sedate but quietly lovely) and possibly one other band but myself, Mr P and Ms L have racked our brains and cannot remember who it might have been. Whether it was one or two support bands, bare-footed woman continued to lay on the floor in front of the low stage.
When The Broken Family Band took the stage something magical happened. I don't whether it was the music, the crowd or the venue but something definitely changed in the atmosphere when Steven Adams said "Hello Levenshulme ...[dramatic pause]... a phrase I've waited all of my thirty two years to say". Following the laughter that provoked, things just kicked off. The band, despite having just driven up from Cambridge, tore through a set of old favs and songs from "Balls" which was just out. The crowd couldn't get close enough to the band and were dancing and singing deliriously. And everyone, band members, hard-core fans, casual audiences members had smiles on their faces. Possibly even bare-footed woman but I'd lost sight of her in the delirious melee. From the start of the evening which looked like a real non-event this became one of the best and most enjoyable gigs I've ever been too.
At the end it seemed no-one wanted to go home. The band were happy to chat and sign CDs, the crowd just didn't want to leave the room in case the spell was broken. My final memory of the evening was seeing the band after humping their gear through a fire-door into the car park, stick their heads around the door to wave at everyone with big idiot-grim faces. An emotional once-in-a-lifetime event: it was like a wedding, New Year and the best party you've ever been to rolled into one.
And now at the end of October, The Broken Family Band are splitting up. I'll get to see they twice more (once the final show: an invitation-only, fancy dress gig at the Cambridge pub they played their first gig in) and then it's over. But we'll always have the music. And we'll always have Levenshulme.
Those final tour dates are here.
IT'S ALL OVER
THE BOOZE & THE DRUGS
The Broken Family Band
Balls [BUY]
This is clearly not a week for gig-going without incident. No road traffic accidents tonight but we arrived as a six and only three saw 
It was raining today in Manchester after a week of sunshine (ahem). Had Cambridge's finest brought the wet fenland weather with them to match their indie melancholia? Well we can't really blame them for the weather. Or for the 10.30pm curfew due to a club night following (but we can blame the promoter for the latter. Shame on them for charging us full price but cheating us on the running time). 
Live The Broken Family lose the country-tinged melancholia (in the main) and deliver an energetic, hard-edged indie-rock sound. They are phenomenally well drilled: hats off to drummer Mickey Roman for a stunning performance throughout. Tonight started with a few slower numbers before picking up the pace. The set then took in older numbers including the now traditional audience sing-a-long to "John Belushi" - singer Steven Adams caustic comment: "you all bought THAT album didn't you?". If some of the audience are still hooked on "Welcome Home Loser", 'that album' from 2005, the band aren't with plenty of later songs including seven from the new album.
Steven Adams is a wry charmer of a front-man but tonight he was short on banter given the time constraints. One exception: "if there's a disco afterwards and we stay, we want a roped off VIP area". BFB attempt rock-god swagger but their lack of pretension and even vulnerability mean it is nothing more than ironic wise-cracking. But given the quality of their song-writing and playing they really do deserve a metaphoric roped-off area in contemporary music-making.