The Beaches are a Canadian indie rock band with an emphasis on interpersonal relationships and the hardships of romantic attachments, a stellar preamble for Valentine’s Day. Their latest album, No Hard Feelings, finally saw them reach the UK as they made it to Manchester with the help of Dea Matrona as main support.

First up was Dea Matrona, a Belfast based singer songwriter duo that favour a more Fleetwood Mac inspired aesthetic and musical background. Their first song of the night, Red Button, showed off an energetic approach which featured that classic rock back to back guitar work we’ve come to expect from the likes of Heart.

Their sound is directly ripped from the 70s with a dreamy pop sound of the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Heart and even Cheap Trick. It’s power pop songwriting with an acoustic Thin Lizzy sound as evidenced on tracks like Stuck on You which features a nice twang fuelled bridge and soaring vocal harmonies.

There’s even some stellar bluesy guitar work on tracks like the Black Velvet style So Damn Dangerous and a tasty tapping solo on Hate That I Care to keep your attention throughout the overdriven dream pop vibes. The real highlight was the stunning harmonies of Glory Glory (I Am Free), a song which the two vocalists bonded over in a singing contest back in the early days of the band. They may not have won that contest but they certainly won the hearts and minds of many here tonight in Manchester.

Finally came The Beaches with their borderline New Wave inspired sound as they played Last Girl at the Party. A somber yet lively track that seemed to be about outstaying your welcome. Not to get ahead of myself but this song bookended the show and made for a nice bit of cyclical closure as if to say “all things will end like this”. It was a nice moment of reflection but there was still over an hour of music in between.

I spent a large amount of the show trying to work out who The Beaches remind me of. Me and Me gave me a bit of The Veronicas, Cigarette had a bit of B52s kick and Shower Beer sounded like it belonged on the Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging soundtrack (highly British millennial coded compliments). There was a lot going on between all these songs between the high octane punky drumming and the simple yet satisfying guitar work, you could surely find something that works for you in a Beaches set.

The latter half of the set housed most of my favourite tracks. The somber piano driven ballad, Lesbian of the Year, the Garbage-esque What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Paranoid and Fine, Let’s Get Married which taps into that Joy Division/Smiths vibe of tolerating misery for the sake of comfort and security.

Perhaps all of these references aren’t what you’d connect to these songs but music is so personal, individualistic and based on feelings that you could comfortably connect anything to anything. Such is the power of music and The Beaches are a powerful bunch of Canadian women.

Feelings were important in this set as a massive chunk dealt with complex emotions of longing, absence and even a distrust of your own feelings. Blame Brett deals with finding that one bit of joy from a nasty breakup manifested here as an angry song that helped close a wonderful set. Is a breakup truly the worst thing to happen if you can get a song out of it? The answer is yes, fuck my ex.

This show came close to Valentine’s Day and for many, that’s a rough day of loneliness but you’re never truly alone as long as you have music. Through all the heartache, there’s still a sad song that you can always come back and a handful of those sad songs belong to The Beaches.

Dea Matrona Photo Gallery – (C) Christopher James Ryan Photography

The Beaches Photo gallery – (C) Christopher James Ryan Photography