Gruff Rhys – RNCM, Manchester – 15th September 2018

Secret Meeting score: 83

by Philip Moss

Despite huge successes across his 25 plus year career, Gruff Rhys has kept the mainstream at arm’s length. But such are his extraordinary talents as a writer and performer, he has built up – both during his time as frontman in the Furries, and since moving into his solo ventures – a cult status which means he can genre hop almost at will. And the first, of two sold out shows at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music, totally encapsulated this.

Opening the show with just his acoustic guitar, he backtracked through various career cuts- adding percussive and ambient backdrops using a variety of ‘toys’ such as a child’s record player and a metronome. Before being joined, one by one, by players including ex-Flaming Lips’ drummer, Kliph, for a hypnotic blast of Welsh language track, IoIo, and the poptastic, American Interior.

However, after a short interval, the Welsh troubadour returned, backed not only by his ‘band’, but by Manchester’s 21 piece, Piccadilly Symphony, for a live interpretation of this year’s Babelsberg LP in full. The gorgeous acoustics of the room lent itself to the Hazlewood-esque compositions, with Drones In The City and sardonic album closer, Selfies In The Sun, sounding particularly exquisite.

Gruff Rhys truly is one of alternative music’s most ambitious and loved sons. A fact that this show only further emphasised.

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