(((O))) Live: Alestorm • Rumahoy • The Dread Crew Of Oddwood – O2 Ritz, Manchester

It took a while, but pirate metallers Alestorm finally brought their fifth album No Grave But The Sea to UK shores, for an extensive run of dates. North Carolina’s Rumahoy, and acoustic pirate band The Dread Crew Of Oddwood completed the jolly group of privateers, imaginatively named Piratefest 2018.

There can’t be many better support bands for getting a crowd into the mood for a party than folk act The Dread Crew Of Oddwood. They’re asking for audience participation by the time ‘Side Quest’ is played, and have the entire room in the palms of their hands by the time they’re introducing ‘Trollwhack’ – “it’s a song about troll semen”. As they’re quick to point out, they’re definitely not a heavy metal band – featuring mandolin, tin whistle, and upright bass, but not a guitar in sight – but this is one ‘Heavy Mahogany’ band that all you fun loving metalheads need in your life. They’ve got stage presence – think the Judas Priest, synchronised guitar-lifting thing, but with mandolins and an upright bass. They’ve got the songs. Great fun.

Rumahoy very much look the part, all billowing shirts, well-worn boots and balaclavas concealing their identities. They’re straight into the subtly named ‘AHOY!’, which conveniently doubles up as a way to introduce the band. Unfortunately, I don’t think they were very good: average songs with poor vocals, and ‘AHOY!’ being particularly cringeworthy. Seemingly though, I was in a very small minority with that opinion: even with minimal encouragement the pit opened, and the party started early. And their closing song, ‘Pirateship’, is surprisingly good – a bouncy mix of dance and German verses (for some reason). But otherwise, not for me.

Alestorm have been sailing under the radar for a while now, slowly building up an impressive set-list, and gradually getting bigger and bigger – the venues on this tour aren’t exactly small clubs, and not only are there a lot of them, they’re selling most of them out. Not only do they open their set with their most famous song’, ‘Keelhauled’, but also include in their opening six tracks three very successful singles and ‘The Sunk’n Norwegian’, a perpetual live favourite. It’s chaos. The balconies at The Ritz always make the venue seem much smaller than it actually is, which serves to give a big gig, with some massive pits, an intimate feel. ‘Nancy The Tavern Wench’ is another live favourite, prompting wide-scale rowing, and possibly the biggest sing-along of the night (barring when ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was played over the PR between Rumahoy and Alestorm). Alestorm are also very underappreciated as songwriters – just as capable of twisting epics like ‘1741 (The Battle Of Cartagena)’ or ‘Captain Morgan’s Revenge’ as they are simple party numbers like ‘Drink’, ‘Wenches & Mead’, or their bonkers cover of Taio Cruz’s ‘Hangover’. Chris Bowes’ stage banter is offbeat, sometimes verging on nonsensical – although he’s strangely realistic when he describes their investment in their live setup as being increasingly larger rubber ducks on stage. I think everyone knows what they’re going to get from an Alestorm show by now; they’re the music equivalent of a B-movie that everyone loves, rather than a perfectly shot visual masterpiece that is really just a bit boring and pretentious.