Words by Adora Mekuleyi
Photos by Olly Bromidge
As Thursdays become the new Fridays, it hardly shocked me that on a Wednesday night, The Water Rats was bustling with energetic anticipation of a night filled with good music orchestrated by Manchester-based record label, Scruff Of The Neck featuring MOSES, Scattered Ashes and Finches.
My innate lack of direction made it so that I, unfortunately, missed Scattered Ashes, described by Jean Genie as reminiscent of Joy Division and Editors. I arrived halfway through Finches, who had a flavour of Jamie T. The main support was a solid foursome, delivering songs about a troubled air of reminisced youth and a great tongue-in-cheek cover of Kate Nash’s ‘Foundations’.
After a quick break in the smoking area, I bumped into Philip Selway – the drummer of Radiohead, making it the second celebrity sighting I’ve encountered at The Water Rats with the first being Clem Burke from Blondie.
It was time…
The sharp, raw voice of MOSES piercing the room was the first thing I noticed as I joined the bustling crowd by the main stage. Lead singer Victor’s presence felt magnetic as if the energy in the room had condensed into a single moment, pulling everyone together with honest intensity.
The set list, snapped from an ecstatic Jean Genie who had managed to snag the real thing, went as follows: ‘Low’, ‘King Size’, ‘You Need L’, ‘Move On’, ‘Storm’, ‘Who Needs The Money’, ‘Skin’, ‘Raining For Days’, ‘River Thames’, ‘Sheep and Skyscrapers’, ‘Guilty’, ‘Cause You Got Me’, with encore songs ‘Leave Leave Leave’ and ‘Waiter’.
With each song, Morgan Rickman set the tone with an electrifying guitar riff, later accompanied by Matthew McCrilly and James Creighton creating the pounding backbone to the songs. James’ backing vocals highlighted the sharp tone of Victor M. Moses, who spent more time in the air than on the stage.
Social and political issues were addressed in blunt but funny lyrics such as “Fuck all the landlords”, encapsulating widespread frustrations about housing inequality and rent exploration in a fun but rebellious way. The humour added an elevation to the anger, making it not just a protest but an engaging and relatable moment for the audience. It reflects the band’s lyrical capability to be hard-hitting, tackling serious topics in a way that calls to the youth.
Victor blurred the lines between band and audience, joining the crowd as he sang the last chorus of ‘You need L’, with the crowd using the gesture as permission to inch closer to the stage, intimately bridging the gap. The collective movement toward the music was almost ritualistic, like an unspoken pact between Victor and his audience.
The more I watched, the more I was pulled towards the audience, they believed every word MOSES have to say. They could relate, they felt seen; even if it was just for two and a half minutes, every thought and feeling that they’d had was sung to them, and they were singing every word back.
As I retreated to the bar to write my notes I got to talking to MOSES’ fan Jo, who was of course repping band merch and when asked about the band, said “The Greatest! I’ve known the band since they started playing and they always put on the best show!”
The crowd needed one more song and the band graciously obliged with not one but two leaving the audience electrified. After ‘Leave Leave Leave’, the song of the night, ‘Waiter’, started. Victor slowed down, trading his electrifying jumps for something more introspective.
He cradled the stage, a stark contrast to his previous energy, as he took in each word he had written, sung, and lived through. It was a reverent moment, almost as if he was pausing to make peace with everything he’d put into the song. And in that calm, the weight of every note felt heavier, more significant.
Seeing MOSES allowed me to feel what happens when a band and an audience are deeply interconnected, these people; strangers, friends, lovers even perhaps enemies grew closer. For those sixty minutes the world slipped away for them, and the music said everything they couldn’t say.
An absolutely brilliant night.
insta: @mosesofficialpage and FB: @MosesOfficialPage
MOSES https://linktr.ee/mosesofficialuk
Scruff Of The Neck https://scruffoftheneck.com/
