Gorilla, Manchester, 30th March 2018
If ever there was an up-and-coming band that showed hard work paying off, it is Sunflower Bean. The New York three-piece have toured relentlessly since their 2013 beginnings and tonight marks their second headline stop in Manchester for a sold-out show.
"Let's play some rock," calls frontwoman Julia Cumming's Eastside twang. Her voice, incidentally, is one of the most impressive components of the hour-long set, effortlessly gliding from adlib screams in heavier choruses to ethereal falsettos.
Along with a small helping of older tunes, much of the setlist is made made up of songs from the band's freshly-released second album Twentytwo In Blue. Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac acts as an unsubtle influence of the latter, paticuarly in the gentle Memoria and rocky set opener Burn It.
The band even look like they've stepped out in the name of yesteryear nostalgia, from Cumming's glam-rock eye paint to guitarist and co-vocalist Nick Kivlen's crisp white boilersuit.
Still, these newer song, when interweaved with tracks from 2016 debut Human Ceremony, treat the audience to a showcase of the band's evolution.
The fuzzy 2013 and riff-heavy duet I Was Home, songs crafted early in Sunflower Bean's career, flaunt its members as the experimental Brooklyn teens they began as. Their latest offerings show the transition into a confident, international stage presence who have found their feet and have a better idea of who they want to be.
There are notable fun points in the set, too. Crisis Fest sees the band command audience participation in the form of fist pumping in time to its "No, no, no!"s. Come On is a fast-past whirlwind of riffs and repetition.
It's clear from tonight that this is a young band with real promise, able to leave a crowd itching to hear what its future holds.
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