LIVE REVIEW: Rise Against – Stripped Back Set @ The Key Club, Leeds

With the era of lockdowns seemingly on hold, at least for the time being, it seems as though the world of live music is suddenly scrambling to catch up with itself. Chicago punks RISE AGAINST, for example, released their ninth studio album Nowhere Generation back in June, and managed to complete a mammoth summer US trek in support of it, but are only just now making it over to the UK as a two-piece for a series of intimate ‘release shows’. We made our way up to the rainy north to catch the first of these dates, as the band hit The Key Club in Leeds.

First of all, opening up the evening are Steph and Gillian Carter of Hertfordshire rock and roll outfit LYONESS, who get things going with an entrancing set of soulful, stripped-back takes on their back catalogue to date. Faced with an impressively-packed out house for their early stage time, the duo’s combination of sultry vocals and emotive fretwork prove an impressive opener, seemingly endearing themselves to those unfamiliar with their work with relative ease thanks to the commanding likes of Devil’s Dance. Completely stripped of the louder elements of their usual sound, the emphasis tonight very much falls on Gillian, whose performance is nothing short of enchanting atop such a beautiful acoustic canvas, very much marking LYONESS as a band worth keeping tabs on when they return in their more amped-up usual form.

Rating: 8/10

Truth be told, tonight’s headliners probably could’ve come out on stage, played absolutely anything they wanted, and still been received as heroes. Despite this not being a full-band RISE AGAINST show, vocalist/guitarist Tim McIlrath and lead guitarist Zach Blair get a full-on ovation before they’ve even played a note tonight, and when said opening note is the start of Prayer Of The Refugee, the roof of The Key Club feels as though it could blow off. The Violence, from 2017’s Wolves draws equally huge singalongs, and this just about sets the tone for the evening as a whole, with the duo mining almost the entirety of their 20 year back catalogue (only debut record The Unraveling remains untouched) for a reworked hits set that absolutely flies by. Of course, this technically being a delayed album launch celebration, there’s a handful of Nowhere Generation cuts spread across the evening, with an early Talking To Ourselves and a bombastic rendition of the title track both making significant waves amongst the Leeds crowd, as well as a penultimate and stirring version of Forfeit.

Elsewhere, the band’s more ballad-leaning material like the stunning Hero Of War and Swing Life Away of course suit the two-man unplugged approach down to a tee, with both inducing full-venue crowd singing that seems to visibly stun McIlrath – the former in particular sounding simply spine-tingling. It’s not all emotional balladry tonight though – probably the most unexpected and darkly comic moment of the duo’s entire performance comes when they decide to pull out a cover song. While their recent companion EP Nowhere Sessions saw RISE AGAINST taking on the likes of CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL and THE MISFITS, tonight it’s a DANZIG classic that’s pulled out of the proverbial hat, as Tim introduces their version of the “actually pretty lyrically fucked up” Mother – here played pretty faithfully and with impressively-appropriate spooky vocals echoed throughout the room by delighted fans.

A duo of lights-in-the-air ballads soon follow, with both People Live Here and the aforementioned Forfeit proving excellent in this low-key form, before a final rousing rendition of stone-cold classic Savior brings the night to an exceptional close, proving exactly why it’s revered as one of the band’s very best. It might have taken a long time for them to get here, but RISE AGAINST tonight more than made it worth the wait for everyone in attendance.

Rating: 9/10