Beth Ray Writes

I went to the opening night of Love Fame Tragedy’s tour on Monday at Gorilla in Manchester. I always love more intimate venues so it was exciting to be able to see LFT there.
Matthew Murphy, the lead singer of LFT, arrived onto stage and opened the gig with ‘Don’t You Want To Sleep With Someone Normal?’ which is the opening track of his latest album ‘Life is a Killer?’.

Murphy is an accomplished musician, with over 20 years in the music industry, so it’s no surprise he’s going to come out and deliver a great set. His vocals are pitch perfect, his set list had the perfect mix of new songs and older tracks. Murphy interacted with fans at various intervals, keeping the conversation light and fun but not too chatty for fans to lose interest. His songs are filled with knockout guitar riffs and sexy bass beats with some synths thrown in the odd song just to spice it up. His band, Hayley on bass and Louis on drums, kept up with Murphy’s cues for next songs and their sound was electric. It was the perfect indie vibe gig for a Monday night, not too rock heavy and just enough upbeat tempos to remember why a midweek gig is just as important as a weekend gig.

As all first gig’s at the start of tour can go, there were some technical difficulties with the sound. I was stood near the back and at times there were some volume issues with Murphy’s microphone but it wasn’t too obvious and it didn’t stop me from enjoying the concert.

The set list consists of 12 songs followed by 2 more after the encore, with 7 songs being from the latest album. I was hoping to hear “My Head’s In a Hurricane” but I had no such luck on this night. My favourite song is “Slipping Away” which he played quite early on in the set and he ended with “5150”, “My Cheating Heart”, “If You Don’t” and “Backflip” which I thought were great songs to end on as these were the tracks the fans went crazy for.
I personally preferred to hear the new tracks off the album as it was the first opportunity of hearing them live so I was glad he had quite a few on the set list.

To conclude, I highly recommend going to see LFT live if you can. He has an array of hits, that make for a great gig. His sound is distinctive with it’s guitar and bass melodies but it works and I’ve really enjoyed listening to his new album and seeing the tracks played live. He’s playing in Brighton tomorrow at The Great Escape Festival, other than that it might be a little while until he tours again. Failing that the Wombats (Murphy’s other band he’s in that you may of heard of) are playing Reading and Leeds. So make sure this is your sign to check when your favourite artists are touring, especially when they’re playing in intimate venues.