WORDS BY DINA VOLOVIK FOLLOW HERE
“Bye bye beautiful, don’t bother to write” pumped through the speakers – a piercing sound. It was 2007 and spotty me was hunched over an enormous mocha in a fairy-lit coffee shop outside Yonkers, NY, staring down (or avoiding) my coursework – about 200 pages of George Eliot.
The clear, emo sound cut through my mood, if only for a moment. The band, I’d learn, was Coheed and Cambria. The owner of the high-pitched voice – a hulking, curly-maned man named Claudio Sanchez.
Straddling prog rock, post-hardcore and comic book mythos from Claudio’s Amory Wars series, the band’s albums were shared by students in the know. Their catalogue went far deeper and weirder than my radio-friendly entry point, the song A Favor House Atlantic.
On Monday, over two decades after that song was released, Coheed and Cambria took the stage at Manchester Academy. The hall heaved with millennials and Gen Xers in black band t-shirts – from Alexisonfire to Gojira. I think many of them could tell me a similar story.
The band was in town for its third-to-last concert touring their 2025 album, Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe. And it showed.
Claudio was backlit in red as he launched into ‘Goodbye Sunshine’ – an up-tempo farewell anthem to Amory/Vaxis lore with weary lyrics about being first in line “at your wake / celebrating the good times” and not wanting to “do that grind / every damn night / struggling through life”.
The band were as tight as ever, but the first few songs lacked their signature emotional gut punch. The crowd were throwing up devil horns and singing along – but seemed staid. They tried and failed to mosh several times, even during the popular Everything Evil.
A 36-year-old man singing loudly to my right told me that people usually mosh as soon as Coheed and Cambria takes the stage. He said, “The band are perfection. [But] when they played Everything Evil, no one seemed to know it. It proves the fans aren’t there.”
He might have been right but then, something shifted. Claudio was lit blue as the rest of the band receded into the background. His voice rang out, driving the guitar forward as he launched into 2005’s Number City. He yelled out its urgent hook, “Honey, release my heart / if you let me go”.
Sweaty and upping the intensity, Claudio duck walked through songs, riffing and playing solos with trademark virtuosity. The band seemed to connect with the audience through their back catalogue – but the setlist had plenty of songs from the excellent new Father of Make Believe.
When Claudio came out with his hair in plaits and an acoustic guitar, I knew it was on.I noted down, his voice “sounded like it was coming from underwater”. No idea what that meant, but it was the catharsis we were waiting for.
He brought out his double-neck guitar. And then sang into the air, almost howling. Millennials threw up their hands, still failing to get a mosh pit going.
By the time the band played A Favor House Atlantic, the crowd was sweating their prog and emo demons out. After they ripped through the famous Welcome Home, the lights went up.People filed out hot, stinky and satisfied. To quote a 24-year-old punter, “I got a headache. I’ve never headbanged so hard”.
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WORDS BY DINA VOLOVIK FOLLOW HERE
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