Lemonheads - O2 Ritz, Manchester, 16/8/2025

  by Richard Lewis

published: 7 / 9 / 2025

Article

Having a tourbus double up as an advertising board is an excellent idea. The sleeper bus parked in front of The Ritz tonight has a temporary wraparound paint job informing us that The Lemonheads’ new album ‘Love Chant’ is out soon and even includes a PR code to order it. The first album of original material by the US alt. rock giants since 2006, in typically offbeat fashion, the tour to promote it takes place several weeks before its actual release in late October. Billed as the ‘Come On Feel The Deep End’ tour, the band’s 1993 LP ‘Come On Feel The Lemonheads’ paired with excellent new single ‘The Deep End’, the dates celebrate the Bostonians’ commercial summit. Slightly lesser in comparison to 1992 magnum opus, ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’, the strength of band proprietor Evan Dando’s songwriting during that era ensures even their second best LP outranks many of their contemporaries’ best efforts. In an era when rock gigs have become increasingly slick, with reliance on backing tracks, autotune, and rumours of offstage musicians, the present band remain reassuringly, if shambolically, immune from such developments. Sat behind a PA stack writing out the setlist during The Bevis Frond’s support set before joining them for a vocal cameo, from the upstairs balcony it looks for all the world like Dando is colouring in his trainers. Stories of the singer’s erratic reputation are legion: missing his Glastonbury 1995 set due to being wasted and then booed off during an impromptu performance before Portishead, along with a host of other more minor skirmishes are semi-legendary. On the flipside, the singer’s solo London show last year saw him turn in a 100 minute, 40 song setlist of hits, deep cuts, obscure covers and fan favourites, with him looking every inch the iconic songwriter and human jukebox he is capable of. Leading this week’s line up onstage, Dando’s arrival is weirdly reminiscent of Nicholas Cage’s bonkers, much-shared appearance on vintage BBC chat show ‘Wogan’. Instead of karate kicks and throwing dollar bills into the audience, he has the doomy intro music played twice over to create the right ambience, before taking a circuit on his skateboard, falling off and doing a forward roll towards his guitar stand. Picking up his axe, ‘The Great Big No’, heralds the start of the set and the record, as ‘Come On Feel…’ is played in full, in sequence. From his fidgety moves around the mic stand and off-on-off indecision over FX pedals, it quickly becomes apparent that Dando may have imbibed several beverages backstage beforehand. The group’s biggest US hit ‘Into Your Arms’ and LP highlight ‘It's About Time’ are supplemented – to put it generously – with improvised guitar solos that slalom around the fretboard until the approximate key is reached. Regardless of how ragged proceedings become, Dando possesses sufficient muscle memory to ensure the set doesn’t descend into chaos. Two of his finest songs, the beautifully melancholic ‘Paid To Smile’, chronicling the unreality of fame and objectification, “Please don’t hold the door / I can work the handle on any car / It’s really not that hard” and love gone sour missive ‘Favorite T’ suit his weathered croon. The excellent rhythm section do a sterling job of ensuring the tracks keep flowing, watching for cues. ‘Style’, already the weakest song on the album, sees Dando switch from six strings to four, to deliver what is frankly a complete mess, with basslines firing off in all directions. Mid-tempo alt. country charmer Being Around is wrecked meanwhile by being revved up to a 100mph punk blast, with garbled lyrics. A solo section on the piano recreates the disc’s throwaway instrumental closer ‘The Jello Fund’, referring to the $5,000 the seven year old Dando earned from a TV jelly advert, put into trust by his dad and blown in a hedonistic New York hotel binge in his mid-twenties. A low-key piano ballad and an unidentified cover sang whilst playing drums follows before the band returns and ‘The Deep End’ reassures us that the singer’s skill with an earworm riff remains intact. Back onstage solo for the encore, a switch to acoustic guitar, a solid rendition of ‘I'll Be Here in the Morning’ by Townes Van Zandt cover is succeeded by a frazzled but still brilliant rendition of bulwark hit, ‘The Outdoor Type’. Regular setlist feature ‘Skulls’ by US punks Misfits follows, which on its conclusion sees the singer abruptly say, “Thank you, goodnight” and depart. Seventy minutes logged, the house lights go up and the audience files out. A performer well acquainted with the jaws of victory / defeat dilemma, sometimes within the same show, the law of averages states the next gig Dando plays could either be stellar or a total shambles. As the uniformly excellent tracks pulled from the new album indicate however, he remains a talent that should never been written off.

Also at Ritz, Manchester

Band Links:-

Play in YouTube:-

Have a Listen:-

Picture Gallery:-