HUNTER HAYES AT THE MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2

Hunter Hayes is an American pop-country cross over and after some digging, it started to dawn on me that he was a serious musician – playing over 20 instruments and that was definitely evident when he was playing. If I’m honest, I was expecting to be disappointed – for it to be another wannabe popstar that just stood and sang but didn’t give a particularly memorable performance. How wrong I was.


He began the set by playing one of his biggest hits and then flowed through about 4 songs in a row – it was really well done and the band genuinely looked like they were having a good time. Notably the bassist who has really long dreadlocks and was absolutely loving it up there. They were changing guitars every other song and it was clear that he was talented by the solos and occasional riffs both with his guitar and with his voice. I was quite surprised at how many songs he had that I knew of – it sounds funny, because I’ve listened to all of his albums, but there weren’t any songs I didn’t recognise.

I’d never been to the venue itself before, but actually it was friendly and not intimidating in the slightest. The room was large and had capacity for around 1,000 people which was a lot considering I thought it was going to be a small turn out. He lit up the room when he entered and managed to get the crowd really going – although I was initially unsure with his perfect hair and a tartan short sleeved shirt that had quite a few top buttons undone – he really got the crowd going after his first few songs. There was a very enthusiastic girl with her boyfriend next to me that was dancing just as much as I was so I didn’t feel so alone.

The atmosphere generally was good too, there were a lot of young people but like a lot of the gigs I go to there were a fair share of older people too. It made the occasion informal and actually worked really well. He played for a good hour and a half which seemed crazy because he did look exhausted afterwards.


Overall, I really enjoyed myself and thought he gave a really good performance. Well worth the time and effort that it took to get to Manchester – Nando’s was also of course on the cards and that just rounded up a perfect evening. Well…apart from the mountains of people that seemed to have invaded Manchester – but I think some people call them students…

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