Hot Flushes

Red Snapper's tour reached Yes in Manchester last Saturday night, a celebration of the 30th anniversary of their debut album Reeled And Skinned and their forthcoming album Barb And Feather. The Pink Room at Yes is close to full with ACR's Martin Moscrop on DJ support duties. Red Snapper are on at 8.30, an early start due to the room converting to a club night not long after 10pm and they waste no time getting the room moving. 

The core duo/ rhythm section of Rich Thair (drums) and Ali Friend (stand up bass) are very talented musicians. If you had a functioning time machine you could drop them into 1920s Harlem, 1940s New York or 1960s Soho and within a few bars of music they'd have everyone rocking, Ali's deft basslines and Rich's on it drumming the bedrock to a set that takes in jazz, dub, surf, trip hop, rocking blues, all points in between and a fusion of all of those. Their set spans the years 1995 to now, everything sounding like the work of a band very much in the present but with one eye on the music of their past that has led to here, now, tonight. Along side Rich and Ali Red Snapper is Tom Challenger playing sax, clarinet and melodica, plus keys and laptop, and youthful guitarist Tara Cunningham who flicks between jazz, angular post- punk/ punk- funk and surf. On opener Lobster, Ali plays his bass with a bow and everyone joins in softly, a low key start to a set that ups the tempo straight after with newer cuts like B- Planet (from 2022) standing alongside the sounds of their mid 90s trip hop. Hold My Hand Up, a collaboration from last year with David Harrow, is a mid- set highlight, the ambient soundscape of the original turned into a dubbed out anthem. 

The room is bouncing, the area near the stage full of dancers and the rest of the room bobbing up and down and left and right. New track Ban- Di- To kicks up a storm, pile driving horn riffs and sharp funk, raucous, infectious fun. They close with Hot Flush, a live version of the Sabres Of Paradise 1995 remix, Ali playing the circling jazzy bassline and the distinctive horn riff ringing out, future jazz crossed with dance music, time travelling music. 

Ali Friend is a presence centre stage, head tipped back while his fingers dance around the strings, occasionally spinning his bass round, leaning into the mic to utter some encouragement to the dancers, a man lost in the sounds, as Rich Thair drives everything from stage right. They come back sharpish for a two song encore, the amped up Wesley Don't Surf sending the punters young and middle aged out into the Manchester drizzle happy.