Manchester isn’t so bad

Being home in the UK has had some real ups and downs. It’s cold AF, the days are really short and everybody I know has had at least 14 children despite being out of the country for only a few years. On the upside, the beer is great, the people speak English and thanks to Veganuary and the younger generation, there appear to be unlimited places to find veggie food. What you don’t expect is to find a brutal Beatdown gig in Manchester.

This weekend I managed to spend several hours shopping with my girlfriend only to lose half of my stuff on the train home. Despite the shelves above your head being made of glass, the visibility of your belongings doesn’t prevent a momentary lapse of mindfulness. Frustratingly, on Sunday we had to go back to the city to re-buy everything I had lost. To my surprise this turned out to be the ideal shopping trip, what had taken 4-5 hours the day before took 20 minutes the second time around.  After feeling accomplished and having stashed all purchased items in a pair of backpacks to minimise the possibility of further loss; we ate at the amazing V-Revs (Vegan burgers made to taste/look like delicious meat) followed by the need for a drink.

Sunday, bloody Sunday

Sunday isn’t a great day to soak in any kind of drinking culture, except for sips of wine at the local cults. After peeping our heads around a few bar doors to see nothing but empty seats, we spotted an unfamiliar back alley bar with what appeared to be a bunch of young metal-head patrons. Eager to hang out with some of my kind I urged Jess to come in with me for a beer.

We ended up underneath the Peer Hat bar (which is the same building where I did a student shoot recently) and found ourselves surrounded by hardcore metal fans throwing themselves about to what I would describe as metalcore/punk. After speaking to a fan I learned that we were listening to “Beatdown“. Each track is kinda slow and sludgy with punkish vocals and numerous breakdowns.

The energy in the room was incredibly refreshing, as an old man, I genuinely fear the disappearance of heavy music. I love hip-hop but the domination of the airwaves this past decade has started to take its toll. It was awesome to see young guys making music I would have enjoyed as an angsty teen and that they had the support to keep making it.

New York in the 90s

I felt some serious New York 90’s Hardcore vibes from the night and the tunes really make you want to break stuff and generally fuck shit up. Feel free to blast this track by Broken Down one of my favourite bands from the night and flick through the below images. It turns out you don’t need to be in New York when there’s a Beatdown gig in Manchester.

See full gallery

Give Broken Down a listen

See full gallery

Edit 2022
Replaced MTSX with Broken Down
Added gallery, improved images, SEO and readability