Manchester Orchestra Amazes The Moore

Manchester Orchestra has a long and storied career, with six albums under their belt and a history of delighting crowds at music festivals worldwide. They brought their latest tour to Seattle and entranced a packed crowd at the Moore Theatre.

Opening the show was easy going indie-rock outfit Michigander, whose thoughtful jams quickly got the crowd on their feet and dancing along.  Their all too short six song set gave a solid impression to the music loving crowd.  The stage was cleared and reset for Foxing, a fun-loving five piece Midwest band that takes their name from making documents look old.  There was nothing old seeming about this group, and their energetic playing style and was on full display throughout their set.  Lead singer Connor Murphy would continually build songs up from a slow jam to a full throated rock song that incorporated him thrashing about the stage in a musical haze.  Their eight song set contained a solid mix of items from their last two albums including “If I Believed In Love” and “737”.  

Finally it was Manchester Orchestra’s turn and the audience was ready, cheering the band on from the moment the lights went down.  Opening with the first four tracks off their latest album “The Million Masks Of God,” the band was awash in light. Lead singer Andy Hull’s calm yet masterfully smooth voice steadily rolled across the audience.  Meanwhile bassist Andy Pierce was rushing around, taking giant strides across the stage and occasionally jumping on the back platform to jam alongside drummer Tim Very.  The band followed by digging deep into their impressive catalog playing 2007’s “I Can Barely Breathe,” “Top Notch” (2014), and “Virgin” (2011).  They then switched it up and played four songs from their 2017 album “A Black Mile to the Surface,” followed by “Dinosaur” and “The Internet” off of their latest album. Finally, they eased into an acoustic version of their most recent hit, “Telepath”.

The crowd loved every minute of it, standing in their seats the entire set.  As the band left the crowd cheered, and Manchester Orchestra returned with a powerful encore of “Shake It Out” and “100 Dollars” before wishing the audience a fond farewell and heading back into the side stage shadows.