Rise Against at the O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester.

By Nic Howells.

The dust has barely settled on the last outing of Rise Against in Manchester, but after such a raucous, albeit short run, the band saw fit to grace our soil with a three hit combo of shows in London, Manchester & Birmingham. The special occasion regarding their Manchester show on this night is the almost triple capacity upgrade vs their last show here. 

Spiritual Cramp

The night opened with the enigmatic Spiritual Cramp, who certainly had their supporters in the house despite their eclectic presentation. The San Francisco natives are a decidedly more traditional approach to the punk genre, but that type of energy is appreciated on a very chilly Saturday night. The paraphrase Sir Elton John, Saturday Nights alright for Flight, as frontman Michael Bingham is rarely on the ground at any point in the set. The entire band have stints of throwing limbs on stage as well as the welcome new wave elements of keys and tambourine from Jose-Luna Gonzalez. They make the most of their minutes but even making a game of the water break. Bingham teases the crowd with a “Do you want to see me drink some water? Will you encourage me?” Almost goading cheers from the fans. What’s best is it bloody works. They’re commanded a lot of attention from Manchester on this evening and have personally been a bucket list band for a minute now. Top marks as an opener, it’ll be nice to one day see their approach to their own show. 

L.S. Dunes

Another band whose name has been on everyone’s lips is 2nd on the bill L.S. dunes. Frontman Anthony Green almost demands connection with his opening salvo of “let the music moooooovee you”. The supergroup have been in around Europe for pushing on their second week as they came over early for some shows to celebrate sophomore album Violet. The setlist has become weighted in favour of the new release since their shows in 2024, which is to be expected from a band on the younger end of the scale. That said, newer songs like ‘Fatal Deluxe’ & ‘Machines’ are already hits with the live crowd. One particular fan is even on the barrier on Travis Stever & Tim Payne’s side, clutching a signed copy of the album throughout. There was a lot of love for this outfit, to the point it would seem some tickets for this evening were shifted entirely on L.S. Dunes name, as the odd, much brighter haired fan, is seen on occasion leaving the venue outright toward the end of the final song. It goes without saying that a band made up of such big names would bring with it some very devout fans, especially when their other acts have a catchy acronym (Frank Iero please stand up). That said, for a band as technically young as L.S Dunes, who were born in the semi-Covid era of 2022 to be in such good stead this early in their journey, we might have a big time act on our hands here.

Rise Against

Manchesters main event came in the shape of 4 unruly legends in the Chicago outfit Rise Against. It’s been some years since Rise weren’t able to sell a venue out in the UK. But with a heavy upgrade in venue, having only played Manchester six months ago at a sold-out Ritz, this quick return felt like a rare treat. Opening the evening on a high octane number like 2011’s ‘Satellite’ is just the norm now for these, but the range of emotion and visual it brings right out of the gate can’t really be matched in their catalogue. Rise are a band that have truly figured out what works and how to succeed whilst still featuring rebellious tropes, hence the hallmark megaphone Tim uses to sing the middle chorus of the song. Now one that was not expected this early in proceedings, if at all, was ‘Tragedy + Time’ from 2014’s The Black Market, which is really a sleeper best album from them. Last time out in August they subbed in ‘Under The Knife’ so it seems like the trend is to slip in an underrated banger early on while the energy is high. Either choice was perfect as these are two personal favourites, and they then return to usual format with ‘Give It All’ with Tim climbing down to the barrier and singing with the crowd as is a staple of the set.

To the surprise of many, ‘Blood-Red, White & Blue’ featured in the setlist. By no means is it a rare track, though the RPM song hasn’t been played in the UK at least since 2018. Something about those older songs seems to swap out Tim’s blood for gasoline. The sound is barely different from their current material, yet seems so much more punky, and it makes for a nice variety without being out of place, and the same could be said for ‘Help is On The Way’ which is shifted a few songs forward from where it was in the set last time. Tim takes the time to thank the crowd for packing out Victoria Warehouse for their first ever time playing it, as well as thanking L.S. Dunes & Spiritual Cramp, hailing them as “two of the best bands out there playing rock and roll right now”. ‘Blood to Bleed’ was definitely not a song people were expecting. Aside from a one off play in Brixton last year, this hasn’t been played in the UK for a decade and a half. The three-peat of ‘The Good Left Undone’, ‘The Strength to Go On’ and ‘Long Forgotten Sons’ is just some absolute fan service, as all feature on THOSE middle two banger albums The Sufferer and The Witness & Appeal to Reason. While they’re not my personal choices from those records, they still bang and have many hands and pints in the air.

Rise Against shifts down gears to their acoustic portion of the set. The always popular ‘Hero of War’ from 2008 fills the room, Tim McIlrath on acoustic guitar. The track is later joined by his cohorts for a full band, but still stripped back rendition, most notably with Brandon Barnes supplying some marching line style drumming to accompany the songs subject matter. This song will never not work, but set-lists also had it potentially being swapped out or followed by 2014’s People Live Here, but was not played. This is instead followed by ‘Swing Life Away’, which has been sealed into the setlist with concrete at this point and a fan favourite.

Similar to last years tour, they slide in a new track for the post-acoustic lull. Last time out it was the ambiguous ‘Want it All’, which left some fans a tad quiet. This time it goes down better with the newly dropped ‘Nod’ that they released in late January.  This was good stuff from Rise, as they’re soon pushing 4 years without much new material, and that probably feels longer for some as a lot of 2021’s Nowhere Generation doesn’t really get played. The only thing that could possibly scupper the response to the new single is if they played a hall of fame worthy track to follow. Stand up ‘Prayer of the Refugee’. This is literally Rise Against’s most played song live, as well as on streaming platforms and Guitar Hero 3. It features some extra spicy wailing on guitar from Zach Blair, and the band try their hand at fooling the crowd into thinking that’s it for the night. But there’s one song more synonymous with this group that is yet to be played.

The crowd rabble whilst Tim, Joe, Zach & Brandon are off stage, and no one really moves a muscle except for to stretch for whatever the final few tracks has in store. Audience of One is first up, and always has the crowd on hand with some healthy sets of lungs on show in Manchester. What is hilarious is Tim discussing that they went to their first ever footy match the previous day, and his marvelling at the splitting of home and away fans, not being able to drink in the stands, and best… BEST of all, his discovery of Bovril. In all the years bands have played Victoria Warehouse, you would make good money on betting there has never been a “Bovril” chant within these four walls. The Manc crowd went mad for it. Rock is at its absolute best when it’s a little bit ridiculous 

What was really not expected of this set was ‘Black Masks & Gasoline’, as it’s another Revolutions Per Minute track that has been played once in the UK in the last 15 years. Rise aren’t exactly a nostalgia band but there’s clearly some (see also: a lot) of fans who have been around since day one and popped huge for this deep cut. Now, no prizes for guessing that final song honours went to ‘Saviour’, but there’s probably never going to be a world where that isn’t the case. From the second the first note plays the crowd are up for it, and there’s a lot of pageantry and flash vs when they played it in August. There’s a spectacular solo from Blair as Tim and Joe Principe play fills face to face. As well as a very “superstar” light show as Barnes batters the last few notes out on drums

The best part of this Rise Against show, the last Rise Against show, ALL Rise Against shows. People will never really tire of them. See you in 6 more months lads.