My second concert during my trip to Manchester was to see The Rifles in the interestingly named venue “Gorilla”.
The Rifles are a lesser known force in the British indie music scene of the 2000s and have just recently released their new album “Love Your Neighbour”.
Their music is a blend of strong rhythm guitar backing and cheerful singing and overall is a great time to be listening to it, reminds me a lot of what I’d argue is their Irish equivalent, The Frank and Walters.
An incredibly enjoyable concert in a rather small venue but with a great crowd who were genuinely into the music.
Stage Setup: 7/10, a stage setup that does what it needs to do but nothing particularly extravagant or over the top which worked well with the venue size.
Support: 9/10, support started almost instantly after the doors times, with a singer called Tony Mac being up first, Tony Mac has an outstanding voice and a great mind for songwriting and gave a great intimate show to the early arrivers. Next up was a rather new band, who only currently have 3 songs out, Sunspells. They were an absolute delight and even with their short catalogue they absolutely nailed it, an amazing band who know how to play together very well.
Merchandise: 6/10, a decent selection of merch including t shirts, scarves and plenty of signed memorabilia, but nothing that really struck me as well made or well designed, very simple t shirts with no dates on the back and with a very standard build quality on them, the support band Sunspells had merch to which was quite cheap and surprisingly higher quality than the main band. The merchandise here is saved by the low price and wide variety of items on sale.
Crowd: 9.5/10, a near perfect crowd, everyone knowing nearly every song and giving it their all tune after tune. A crowd of people who are just genuinely happy to be there and to enjoy the music, some people around the edges of the crowd didn’t seem too into it though, which loses it the half point.
Artist Performance: 7/10, a great performance from the lads in The Rifles, but nothing stratospheric in quality, sounds near exact to the studio recordings but lacks that bit of showmanship that truly makes a great performance.
Overall: 8/10, a very pleasant concert experience with a great crowd and a great feel throughout the night, some points of improvement could’ve been made but you could say that about nearly every show, all in all it was a grand night.
Up Next: Elle Coves, Ruby Sessions, 11/2/25
Jays Concert Blog 