Gig review: Man with a Mission at O2 Ritz Manchester
Faced with their toughest foe yet in the inclement bitterness of Storm Amy, the J-rock cult favourites bid to counter the weather with their own skyscraper hooks and anthems.
“They say you can’t crowdsurf in here,” Man With a Mission guitarist and co-vocalist Jean-Ken Johnny informs a lively audience a handful of songs into their performance at the O2 Ritz Manchester. He gives an exaggerated shrug, drawing plenty of laughs. “But as long as you don’t hurt anybody…”
There may be no bodies in aerial motion in the end, but there’s a wondrous novelty about the return of the J-rock cult favourites to this northern hub, and not merely because they are preposterously attired in faux-wolf mascot heads with a self-imposed lore that suggests they’re the brainchild of Jimi Hendrix and were frozen in Antarctica.
International tours for Asian artists tend to call it London and done; this second date of a run beyond the M25 feels rarefied and treasured alone for that very reason.
Still, amid a third consecutive year on British shores, Man With a Mission face their toughest foe yet – the inclement bitterness of North Sea autumn, as Storm Amy batters its way down from the Pennines.
The five-piece – primarily led by Johnny and rapper Tokyo Tanaka, frequently shuffling verses between them – meet the challenge head on; across a 15-song set that draws heavily on their stacked catalogue of animé themes but mostly serves as an effective sampler for their full career, they leap from nu-metal revival to electro-arena giddiness with fist-pumping aplomb.
As the weather threatens to take the roof off this near-century-old art-deco dance hall outside its doors, the band try to smash it from within; barely a tune goes by without some skyscraper hook that conjures a slew of claws-up poses.
Get Off of My Way, with its nimble post-funk rush, Dark Crow and its sub-hardcore flirtations, Seven Deadly Sins propelled by stadium-size woah-ohs and synth flourishes; the group showcase an impressively disparate palate, even in today’s modern cherry-picker scenes.
An elongated video skit where Johnny is made to work at Tanaka’s heavy machinery business neatly divides the show ahead of a home straight that leans hard on their biggest crossover hits; Dead End in Tokyo, recast in acoustic form, leads the blast of Merry-Go-Round, Take Me Under and Fly Again, replete with lusty arms-aloft singalongs.
“Thanks for coming out on a rainy night, Manchester,” Johnny says before a climactic Kizuna no Kiseki puts the crowd into raw-throated delirium. One would assume they’ll be back for such further triumphs sooner rather than later.