Will Joseph Cook Packs Out Manchester- One Year After Selling 7 Tickets In The Same City

Abi White | 5th May 2017

Will Joseph-Cook performed at Manchester’s very own Sound Control basement on Thursday evening to play to a packed out audience, explaining that the last time they played in Manchester a year ago, they only sold seven tickets.

 

After the appearance from support act, Ten Tonnes, fans were eagerly awaiting the appearance of the Tunbridge Wells born artist and his accompanying band.

 

Shortly following the release of the debut album, the singer opened up his 45 minute set with one of his upbeat and most popular tracks, ‘Sweet Dreamer’. Will Joseph-Cook and his band have a great aesthetic, with Cook supporting a telecaster and the whole band’s casual style reflecting the singer’s musical style.

‘Sweet Dreamer’ was a well-chosen song for an opener that had audience members finding themselves nodding along to the familiar pop-track. Despite arguably producing pop music, Cook takes the genre from another angle when bringing in his accompanying backing band, making for a charming group of young musicians.

 

Cook said a few ‘hello’s’ before plunging straight into a track off the new album, ‘Treat Me Like A Lover.’ Will Joseph Cook cleverly arranged their set list so that the audiences attention wasn’t lost: sandwiching popular tracks in-between the lesser-known and newer tracks from the album.

 

The set then took a turn for the next few tracks, as Will Joseph Cook swapped for an acoustic guitar to perform a selection of equally and beautiful acoustic tracks, including ‘Message’, which sparked a unanimous sing along. “Lets take this down a little…” he explained.

 

Performing the acoustic tracks that followed demonstrated Cook’s versatility as a songwriter, proving he can turn his hand to both playing wonderfully catchy pop melodies with a band as well as playing soulful acoustic guitar melodies teamed with his strong vocal range.

 

As momentum slowly gathered once again after the acoustic track, Cook joked: ‘this is our ‘last’ song,’ whilst gesturing inverted commas. Before Cook and his band had the chance, the audience had already began to sing in unison the chorus to the track, ‘Girls Like Me’.

 

“This is the part where we would go offstage and wait for an encore,” Cook began, “but there’s no offstage here, so what were gonna do, is we’re gonna lie down on the stage and after a while we will stand back up and play you two more songs.” The audience erupted into giggles and laughter, whilst the band lay flat across the stage.

 

Upon ‘returning’, ‘Biggest Fan’ and ‘Beach’ concluded the show: a well-designed set list that showcased the tracks in the best way possible.

 

Cook’s luring pop vocals teamed with his indie-pop melodies make for a new and exciting sound, and the singer and his band are a happily refreshing and pleasurable addition to the current indie-pop music scene.