Fiery Furnaces

Night & Day, Manchester, 10/11/07.

This was an interesting day/night (forgive the pun). I decided to take a half day in work to get to Manchester early. I decided to get the 2:50 pm train. As I got on the train and picked a seat I noticed three seats ahead one of the double seats with a table was free so I moved myself there. Just then a girl came on chatting away on her mobile, she then chucked a guitar case in the seat opposite me. She kept talking away and saying about writing songs, playing some shows and going to gigs.

I thought to myself I must have a chat with this girl when she finishes her call. As soon as she hung up I said to her that I go to a lot of gigs by myself. Just as she pointed at my bag and said I like your Help She Can't Swim badge. From there on we had a really good chat. Turns out she is a singer/songwriter called Stephanie Finnegan based in Aberystwyth (west Wales). She's from Warrington originally but was in Uni in Aber and just sort of stayed there. We chatted about music obviously and she gave me her web add to check her out. Turns out she's pretty good and I've promised to go see her play. She has an album recorded too that I'll buy asap.

An excellent start the evening.

I went to the N & D at about 4:30 is just to have a coffee and see if anything was going on. There were a few people about then I spotted Eleanor sat in the window area reading and having a coffee. Cool. When I went down to the toilet too when coming back up I passed Mat and said a quick Hi!.

I sorted myself out and got something to eat. I got to the N & D about 7:40 there was a bit of a queue. I must admit I was surprised that FF were playing here I thought they would play Academy 2 at least. Wasn't complaining though as I like the Night & Day. I thought there would be a big turn out for this too. I was right as the place filled up well within the next 45mins.

The first band on were The Sporting Life a Liverpool band who weren't bad, though I had the feeling I'd seen the lead singer/guitarist before somewhere.

By the time FF came on there was a good crowd packed up front. The venue was pretty much sold out I would guess. I was Corins side (as normal). FF played quite a longish set and mostly the new album too. Standouts were "Duplexes of the dead" and "Japanese slippers". One thing that was interesting was that it was Matt that did nearly all the talking. Eleanor did very little and generally only communicated with Matt and the other two band members apart from the odd "thanks".

A mention here to the bass player and the drummer who were both excellent musicians. They provided a great backing to Matt and Eleanor's quirky and eccentric pop rock.

I really enjoyed them, it was an excellent show. I did manage to catch and have a quick word with Matt after, I was dying to ask if he'd seen Carrie lately. I didn't though.