Live Review: BBC 6 Music Festival / Loyle Carner - O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester 24/03/2023
Loyle Carner makes his second appearance at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in just 4 short weeks, perfectly kicking off BBC 6’s Music Festival. 6 Music welcomed Wu-Lu and Loyle Carner on a Friday night, in its new permanent home of rainy Manchester, on the line-up that featured artists such as The Lathums, Arlo Parks and Christine and the Queens.
Wu-Lu and his band take to the stage, and for someone who hasn’t been in attendance at one of his gigs before, it is far from what I expected. The set starts almost on that soul music wave, before steadily including a great deal of heavier guitar riffs. You definitely could not rabbit-hole Wu-Lu into one specific genre, and for this specific crowd, it just didn’t seem to work well. The band was giving every ounce of their energy on the stage to receive the bare minimum crowd interaction back.
Once DJ Jamz Supernova welcomed the man of the moment, Loyle Carner, to the stage, the whole 3,500 capacity was visibly tuned on for what was about to go down. Although the South Londoner needs little to no introduction, especially in front of this student-filled crowd. Kicking off with his recent album opener, ‘Hate’, we immediately witness this born performer, as he gets everyone on board with this rage-fuelled track.
LC’s recent album is a total ode to his family life, fatherhood, and upbringing, but that is not to say he isn’t a political artist as such, even in front of the BBC cameras we hear him saying “Bun the Tories, you lot can do the swearing for me.” Watching an artist of his size sincerely speak about what he feels strongly about is very rare and a beautiful feature to hold.
His walls start to break down as his fully zipped, red camouflage jacket comes off, straight into the more confessional tune ‘Georgetown’ in which we hear words from Afro-Guyanese, poet-playwright, John Agard.
Loyle’s whole ‘no swearing’ promise soon came to an end after Angel and Damselfly, the laid-back anthems featuring Tom Misch. After inviting Athian Akec onto the stage to perform his infamous speech which features at the end of ‘Blood On My Nikes,’ Carner made his views very crystal clear, despite the live broadcasting from the gig, “young men who look like me are losing their fucking lives.”
With the minimal backdrop alongside his five-piece backing band remaining in one steady place the entire show, many artists would feel like the Warehouse is this cavernous place, but the energy that LC presented and maintained throughout the show was extraordinary.
The effortless, stunning transition between ‘Loose Ends’ and ‘Ice Water’ made them obvious fan favourites, this was just before the hour mark into the set.
Next we were treated to a debut duet from Manchester's AMC Gospel Choir for ‘Nobody Knows (Ladas Road)’. Every single audience member watched in awe, as did Loyle, at the heavenly-like vocals the choir was producing.
Before Loyle began with his outro ‘HGU’, the track all about forgiveness, he says “Take these words and go forwards, go forwards, go forwards.” He told fans about his relationship with his father and how “After a while, I stopped speaking, and started to listen,” you could feel the energy shift as the very open and honest lyrical journey commenced.
Like his last performance at Victoria Warehouse, the encore is short but sweet, with just one song ‘Ottolenghi’, leaving everyone with this joyous feeling. While the backing band leaves the stage, Loyle reads out this flawlessly pieced-together poem “My kid needs a father, not a rapper, can I give him what he’s after?”
Once again, Loyle Carner leaves the audience blown away, yet still wanting more. He gives the crowd exactly what they are there for, every single time without fail.
Same conversation, never boring.
Words by Lucy Holden
Photography provided and owned by BBC
