The Mysterines have returned to the Steel City for the first time since two incredibly sunny evenings in Sheffield with the Monkeys last year and they’ve come with an intimate stripped back performance of their newest record ‘Afraid of Tomorrows’ at The Foundry.
The room was filled with likeminded Mysterines fans and the newest and best tunes, Fontaines’ ‘Starburster’, Pale Waves’ ‘Perfume’ and many more make an appearance on the pre-show playlist.
Guinness in hand and a slight cough, Lia Metcalfe sits on her stool and mutters, ‘this is Stray’. The band goes full force into this powerful track, even stripped back it holds so much emotion.
The Last Dance is the next track to be played and funnily the gig coincided with its music video and single release so it wasn’t out very long before we heard it live in Sheffield!
Looking back at the setlist from the night, they didn’t actually play the album in order, at least from what my memory recollects and an image taken by a fan of said retrieved setlist.
Tired Animal, having heard it on the record after the show, made me appreciate the track even more when hearing it live, which sounds backwards but it makes sense in my head so bare with. The track oozes with personality and influence, it’s dark, it’s brooding, it’s bloody fantastic.
Goodbye Sunshine is a track that reminds me of their earlier tracks, having been a fan of the band since before their first release ‘Hormone’ (my Spotify still has the old single cover showing from when I pre-saved the track, that’s how long I’ve been at this band). The track, like its predecessor, is brooding and bloody fantastic but also wouldn’t feel out of place on the Take Control EP which is one of my favourite pieces of work by the band.
Inside a Matchbox opened it’s live variant with a drum machine sound for those more bubbly drum sounds, a slower track that haunted the room, I’m actually listening to the tracks on the album as I’m writing this and I must say it wouldn’t feel too out of place in some sort of musical. It’s quite hushed and quite discreet in its own way and it’s a fantastic track, especially live.
Hawkmoon continued on with the discreet sound next at The Foundry, Lia and Callum, an acoustic guitar, Guinness and Peronis in hand on stage, couldn’t think of a much better combination.
The gig turned out to be more of question and answer session during the breaks between songs. ‘When are you touring again? Come back here yeah, Sheffield’ with Lia responding with - ‘We’re in a bit of a Sheffield paradox at the moment, we wouldn’t be here without AM - we wouldn’t be here without Sheffield.’
Junkyard Angel at this gig, stripped back, might be one of my favourite things I’ve ever seen live, the stripped back version is absolutely stellar, @ The Mysterines, stripped back album when? A huge standout for me during the gig, so much so I wrote in my notes app during the gig ‘Junkyard Angel stand out live so far’, it’s a monumental track, especially when it’s stripped back as it was at Foundry, class.
Another Another Another was next, the track almost has this almost western sound to it, and it was definitely more visible live, it’s a great track that just makes you want to watch Tarantino’s Hateful Eight or almost any Clint Eastwood film.
Sink Ya Teeth and So Long were played in quick succession, an outlandish juxtaposition between tracks. Sink Ya Teeth, quite dark, quite fast paced into this slow acoustic number, it was great, I loved it. I know bands do stuff like this all the time but it never fails to make me laugh having all this energy in one song and then almost killing it with a slow one, it’s great.
The final track of the evening was the title track, a lovely little singalong consisting of audience and band alike closed the night in style.
I was boasting to a few of my friends after the show just via Messenger and Instagram that even though I knew barely any of the tracks they played (because the album wasn’t out at the time of the show), it may have been the best time I’ve ever seen The Mysterines, the gig was different gravy. Seeing how far they’ve come since debut single Hormone has been monumental and I am a very proud boy, a band I can say I’ve been following from the start, supporting hometown heroes Arctic Monkeys and smashing their sophomore album campaign, absolutely buzzing for them.
