Man/Woman/Chainsaw *****

A Night of Movement and Momentum

Blending soaring melodies, wiry violin lines and bursts of controlled chaos, Man/Woman/Chainsaw transformed Brighton’s Concorde 2 into a space of collective energy and release.

Touring in support of debut album Cannonball, the London six-piece arrived carrying considerable momentum. Yet what quickly became clear was that, despite the growing acclaim surrounding the record, Man/Woman/Chainsaw remain a distinctly live proposition.

Their music continually seems to be evolving. Songs unfold, often beginning with moments of delicacy before opening into noise, urgency and release. That tension between fragility and force shaped their performance, offering a compelling glimpse of a band continuing to expand the possibilities of its sound.

The set opened with Only Girl, immediately establishing the interplay that would define much of the performance. Around the songwriting partnership of Billy Ward and Vera Leppänen exists a collective dynamic in which individual contributions continually reshape the whole. Within that framework, Clio Starwood's violin remains a particularly vital presence, functioning not as ornamentation but as a force capable of altering a song's emotional direction without warning.

That quality was especially evident during Canyons, where Vera's restrained vocal delivery drifted above Clio's violin before both were drawn into a wider full-band surge. The band displayed an ability to allow contrasting emotional states to occupy the same space. Moments of beauty are never undermined by abrasion, nor are passages of intensity diminished by vulnerability. Instead, opposing impulses remain in constant conversation.

Throughout the evening, the band's dual-vocal approach generated a similar sense of creative tension. Billy's more direct and conversational delivery frequently acted as a counterweight to Vera's expressive and soaring performances. Songs including The Thing, Adam & Steve and Goddamn, Lizard Man! demonstrated how effectively those voices move between harmony, contrast and dialogue, creating narratives that feel fluid rather than fixed.

One of the most striking aspects was the sense of movement. Not simply within the music itself, but across the stage and throughout the room. Clio rarely stopped dancing. Vera attacked her bass lines with infectious conviction. Around them, band members continually responded to one another's energy, creating the impression of a performance being shaped in real time. During the unreleased Scab, introduced with the instruction that the audience should dance, that energy continued to reach effortlessly beyond the stage.

As the set progressed, the atmosphere increasingly resembled a collective act of release. Ode To Clio evolved into a thrilling dialogue between violin and guitars that prompted one of the evening's loudest responses. Even The Breeders' Cannonball was transformed through the band's distinctive musical language, its familiar contours refracted through violin textures and Emmie-Mae Avery’s keys and vocal arrangements.

By the time Nosedive brought the evening towards its conclusion, any meaningful separation between audience and performers had largely dissolved. Movement spread through the room. Voices joined in. The song's euphoric finale felt less like an ending than the natural culmination of everything that had preceded it, gathering together the various tensions and releases that had defined the set.

If their debut EP Eazy Peazy documented a band discovering its creative possibilities and Cannonball captures those ideas becoming more assured, then this performance suggested another stage of development. Man/Woman/Chainsaw may be refining their identity, but they have lost none of the imagination, unpredictability or creative restlessness that first distinguished them.

Uncle Junior ****

Hampshire trio Uncle Junior opened the evening with a set balancing post-punk abrasion, melodic instinct and a healthy disregard for predictability. They moved fluidly between moods, from the snarling urgency of Baby Shoes and PSHE to the darker textures of AD. Recent single Melt Me revealed a more melodic sensibility beneath the noise, while I Love You, Kenneth Copeland veered through dub rhythms, feedback and punk intensity with gleeful abandon. Closing with the frenetic I Know You, Uncle Junior left behind the impression of a young group embracing contradiction as a creative strength.

Concorde 2, Brighton – Wednesday 30 September 2026

Peter Greenfield, October 2026.