Brainstorm

The biggest band that Latvia has produced over the years, Brainstorm, came to Manchester....
Brainstorm : Live

Brainstorm : Live

As QRO arrive in Manchester for Friday’s Brainstorm show on April 8th, it’s not a typical Manchester evening. Normally you would encounter a few different accent’ & languages in this, the student part of the city. However, this Friday the air was filled primarily with the Latvian language. The reason for this was to see probably the biggest band that Latvia has produced over the years, Brainstorm.

We arrived at the steps of the Academy 2 to the normal ticket tout’s asking for any spare tickets. No one observed was selling, that is until one guy we came across, trying to sell his friend’s ticket. His friend was slumped on the steps obviously from too much alcohol. The guy sold the ticket to the tout and promptly started putting his friend in a taxi home. Such was the importance of this gig, it seemed that no one was going to miss out even if that meant sending your friend home & going in by yourself!

Renārs KaupersAs we entered the venue it was still over an hour until Brainstorm would take the stage. No support band had been booked, so with every song that ended over the PA a huge cheer would go up from the crowd with chants of ‘Prata Vetra’ (‘Brainstorm’ in Latvian), expecting the band to take the stage. This went on right up until the band came on stage and added to the good-natured spirit of the night. That said, when the band did eventually come out, it seemed that there were more than the 900 in the sold out audience in there; the sound from the crowd was immense. So much so, that it seemed singer Renārs Kaupers was slightly taken aback when he walked out to the obvious love that Latvians have for the band. This was evident from the first lines of the opener, in which the Latvian flag colours were in the lyrics. Indeed throughout the show, small Latvian flags were waved back at the band, not something that you see regularly on the U.K. gig circuit for any band, no matter where they come from. All of this brought a sense of the band bringing Latvians living in the U.K. together for one big party!

The band did really connect with the energy from the crowd and in particular the bands frontman Kaupers, thrived off this and put it back out with his on stage presence. Let’s not forget, this is a band that has played probably the world’s biggest festival in Glastonbury, and also supported The Rolling Stones. But Friday in Manchester was a much more intimate affair, bringing a slice of Latvia to the ex-pats living in the U.K. With the band not really touring the U.K. much these days, this really did feel like a big festival show. Everyone in the crowd united together. Some young children were present and sitting on their dad’s shoulders, whilst the older generation danced together in what little space was left at the back of the venue.

The band played songs both in English and Latvian and the pieces were greeted with equal celebration. Highlights of the set on Friday for us would have to be “Ziemu Apest” (listen to “Little Raindrops” for the English version), “Maybe” and “Spogulit, Spogulit”, which featured guitarist Jānis Jubalts taking over the lead vocals and the crowd singing back all the words in unison. As you can tell by the titles, some of the songs had been sung in Latvian, some in Russian, whilst others in English. This again shows the diversity the band has and the effortlessness that flowed from language to language throughout the set. It seemed none of the crowd cared for the curfew time of the venue, so two encores followed to satisfy the stamping of feet and clapping of hands. If it wasn’t for the curfew, the band would still be probably playing into the early hours of Saturday but alas, events had to be brought to a close.

Leaving the show and back out into the mild Manchester evening on Friday, you could really tell that Brainstorm had put a smile on everyone’s face by the performance. Everyone seemed to be reliving the favourite song or maybe reliving times from Latvia. This is what Brainstorm brought to the U.K. and if possible they should tour the U.K. every year if Friday was anything to go by!

Brainstorm

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Concert Reviews
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