The Empty Page + Bivouac @ Night People 24.9.18

The Empty Page is such a perfect name for a band if you’re writing a review about their music. There before me is an empty page to fill with words about The Empty Page. They are a Manchester trio. The bassist is a woman with dyed mostly blondish/white hair called Kel who also sings and shouts a little bit. The other two both have beards and are men as far as I can tell. Big Jim looms over his drum kit at the back and thwacks the snare louder than any other band in town. Long haired Giz plays a pink guitar and roams the stage looking cool, although he didn’t move about as much as I’ve seen him do at previous gigs. If you have a clue you’ll have probably guessed from their name that they like Sonic Youth very much and you don’t have to ask them to confirm this: their black on white or white on black T-shirt is a homage to the Raymond Pettibon cartoon on the cover of “Goo” with the three of them in the car. They were on early at 7.30pm and had just started their set as I walked down the stairs into Night People. Less than half the set was from their 2016 album: “Big Wheel,” “Turbulence” and the last song, title track “Unfolding.” Kel half apologised for introducing “He’s Very Good at Swimming” as a song about victim blaming but, she said, this room full of mostly men would have to put up with it as she’s had to listen to too many songs about cocks. “Whose cock?” shouts one guy, so I shouted “Buzzcocks!” and with that they kicked into the best song they’d played so far that night. “Thanks for listening to us whinging on a Monday night,” said Kel, then they played the song that really got me moving, “When the Cloud Explodes.” This is soon going to be a single. I felt like I was just getting warmed up when they played the last song “Unfolding.” The Empty Page could have played a set twice as long and deserve to be headlining larger venues. I hope this happens as Kel has something to say, and Jim’s snare drum thwack is too loud for small spaces! After they played another woman arrived making a grand total of five women in the room amongst about 30-50 men. Three of those women seemed quite likely to be Gardenback’s girlfriends, as they jiggled around a bit whilst the next trio played then disappeared when Nottingham’s answer to Dinosaur Jr, Bivouac, played. Gardenback are another band with a singing bassist, but he lacked Kel’s charisma and attitude. I spent their whole set wishing the guitar was louder as it had a spiky spangly Gothic tinge, but unfortunately the guitarist looked like he could have been the son of Mike Rutherford from Genesis, and this was a bit distracting. I’d only heard about Bivouac’s reformation when I saw a poster for this gig in Night People. The low turn out could have been down to it being a Monday night, which is also the worst night for gig attendance. Also there are too many good gigs happening in Manchester these days and most people just can’t afford to go to everything even if they want to. Bivouac were just as good as they were in the 1990s. They looked a little older and Paul and Antony the drummer have grown beards. I’m not sure if they played all of “Tuber” as my CD is buried in a box somewhere, but the best songs of the set were actually the two new ones they played from their recent single. I’d have liked to have bought a copy but didn’t have enough money left.