30th October 2026 – Manchester Rebellion
Words and Pictures by Phil Ingham
The sizeable crowd shuffling into Rebellion the day before Halloween had come for a line-up that promised plenty of opportunities to go bump in the night this spooky season. They were not to be disappointed.
The night opened with Bristolian noise-makers Mother Vulture. Or at least some of them. A sickness bug had hit the camp leaving a stripped-down offering of vocalist Georgi Valentine, bassist Chris Simpson and drummer Matt West. You wouldn’t have known it wasn’t the full team. Simpson filled the stage with riffs and high-kicking energy, compensating superbly for the missing guitars and driven along by the ever-enthusiastic West. The result is an impressively full sound, with hints of Royal Blood, Rival Sons, Soundgarden and Queens of the Stone Age all featuring. They’re by turns dirty, heavy, and soulful and comfortable in every mode. Mother Vulture are not a band that can easily be labelled. Bluesy? Yep. Metal? Yep. Punk? Yep. Valentine moved effortlessly from falsetto cleans to aggressive growls, and the music similarly shape-shifted across genres. There was a real connection with the audience and when they laughed that the crowd reaction meant they’d definitely return to play Manchester again, you sensed it was meant with only a tiny bit of tongue in cheek. I’m sure there will plenty of interest from the people in the room if that announcement is made.
You really have to experience an Evil Scarecrow show for any of it to make any sense. But when you do, it makes all the sense in the world. After a couple of hilarious false starts, for the best part of 90 minutes the band somehow filled the small Rebellion stage with giant robots, a hen / kraken hybrid (named, of course, the Krakhen), skeleton bin men, huge inflatable karate fighters and Dave Mustaine. Or was it Avril Lavigne? The crowd were equally part of the show, with synchronised dance routines, a circle pit around a giant moon and an opportunity for one crowd member to win a cheap DVD (remember them?) by catching a fly with a gigantic pair of chopsticks.
Oh, the music? It’s actually brilliant. Evil Scarecrow are a serious metal band that just happen to not take themselves seriously. It’s easy to think you’re watching a comedy band but that would do a disservice to the crunching tunes that punctuate the antics on stage.
Rebellion is treated to all of the live staples including the pop-punky ‘Green Bin Day’, the black-metal-cum-sea-shanty ‘Release the Krakhen’, the pit-inducing ‘Cosmos Goth Moth Gong’ and of course the obligatory ‘Crabulon’, which sees the mass of metalheads on the floor scuttling left and right – crablike, of course – to the commands of the giant crab-robot on stage. The whole gig feels a little like a fever dream, but I’ve seldom witnessed a live show where so many people have grins etched on their face throughout.
I’ve tried to think of a band to compare them with to serve as a reference point for anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of listening to them, but I keep drawing a blank. They are just Evil Scarecrow and you’ll need to see them for yourselves to fully understand what that means.
Setlist:
Robotoron
Shred the Evidence
End Level Boss
Release the Krakhen
Heavy Metal Happy Birthday
Cosmos Goth Moth Gong
Brother Pain
Green Bin Day
Shoptimus Prime
Master of the Dojo
Hurricanado
Future Machine
Crabulon
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