Big, massive love spread all throughout The Blues Kitchen on Thursday night as WINACHI returned to Manchester for their much anticipated, first headline gig in the city since 2019, and RGM were lucky enough to be there.
Showered with accolades over the pond – winning awards for the best international band and best video at the ISSA Awards in Atlanta, it makes total sense that they would feel very much at home there. So, having spent a good while in the US this year, shooting a video for their next single and generally having a whale of a time, you could forgive them for staying in that glorious LA sun a while longer.
Howbloodyever, you can take the boy out of the north of England but you will never take the northerner out of the boy. He needs rain, and will always return home.
WINACHI has worked with a rather shimmering array of producers, musicians, actors, and singers. They’ve toured with The Sugarhill Gang, The Furious Five, worked with actor Keith Allen, and have a long-standing relationship with Stones/Bowie/ Black Grape/Charlatans producers Danny Saber and John X, (the latter having produced their upcoming album Sympathy for the Future, the list goes on. But after supporting Fun Loving Criminals in September the band is visibly buzzing to be pretty much home, and ready to serve up extra large portions of electro-funk grooviness.
Liam’s laid-back, raspy vocals sound cool as ever, percussionist Inder Goldfinger is on absolute fire, and Antony Egerton is as always, the groovemeister, and thus, the band mesmerises us from start to finish. The atmosphere in the room is pure joy – we are so happy to have them back and sounding so good.
They played a varied and upbeat set, full of new material including ‘Heaven in Hell. A’ – their next single, due to be released 31st October, as well some well-loved old school China White tracks like ‘Yeah Fool’ and ‘Time for Love, and everything in between. (WINACHI is, loosely, an anagram of their former incarnation ‘China White’).
What can I say, it’s been far too long and tonight went way too fast – but with plenty more gigs planned for the UK in the coming months, there will surely be a chance for all of us to get some WINACHI love very very soon.
