From Manchester to NYC: Idle Hours crosses the Atlantic for local festival

It was 11PM at the Lower East Side venue Pianos when Manchester rock band Idle Hours finally began their set. 

They were one of a dozen bands to perform on the venue’s main stage, kicking off the annual, five-day New Colossus festival, where musicians from across the world perform at locales across Lower Manhattan. 

Pianos felt alive that evening as people of all ages and nationalities enjoyed each other’s company and music. Orange all-access badges hung from musicians’ necks.

Fans braved the loud crowds at the bar before making their way through the throngs of people inside the performance spaces.

Though it was past 4AM in England, where all the members of Idle Hours were just 48 hours before the show, their smiles portrayed their excitement to be performing at the festival.

“Since we got to America yesterday, it feels like the day hasn’t ended,” guitarist Tom Ashton told Through the Monitor.

“And it won’t end anytime soon,” clarified drummer Jimmy Brown with a smile. They would all be staying to see the rest of the bands perform that evening.

This show was Idle Hours’ international debut. Many of the band’s members had never traveled to the US before. 

Lead singer and guitarist Jack Waldron was ill. He had lost his voice somewhere above the Atlantic, during his band’s pilgrimage from Salford, in Greater Manchester, to New York City. Each member of the band had to make up for the loss by bringing their technical music skills to the foreground.

Idle Hours kicked off the show with a performance of the 2022 single “Televangelist.” The group moved through the song with ease, heavy on Alex Needham’s bass.

Brown’s comfort behind the drumset enabled the band members to stretch the single all the way into the next, more guitar-heavy song, “Worst Human Being (On Planet Earth),” giving the small crowd an in-depth look at what was to come. 

The group then launched into a more fast-paced single — Ashton’s core playful guitar riffs for “W.I.C.” reverberated across the room. This is one of their more catchy tunes, but its effect, like much of the performance, lacked the energy it needed to truly excite the audience due to the muted singing coming from Waldron’s mic.

In the recorded version, Waldron’s voice adds a gritty intensity that distinguishes the song from the rest of Idle Hours’ 2023 E.P. “Graphic Silence.” 

Waldron described their sound as “garage rock,” a genre that once permeated the sweaty basement music clubs across the country. He and his bandmates find inspiration in all kinds of places, from American metal bands to, in particular, classic Manchester rock acts. 

“I’m inspired by the Smiths,” said Waldron. “It’s hard not to be influenced by it because it’s such a part of the city.” 

Indeed, Manchester bands are forced to contend with the legacy of some of the most iconic indie bands to come out of the U.K., including the Stone Roses, Oasis, and The Smiths.

The area’s rich musical history works to inspire bands like Idle Hours, but can also be fairly limiting for their coverage—every Manchester rock band is competing with the Gallagher brothers. 

The city has a healthy, tight-knit music scene, which, like everything else, was heavily impacted by the pandemic. Today, Ashton assures TTM that this community characteristic is finally returning to Manchester’s music scene.

Featuring heavy rock instrumentals, their song “Made Flesh”  seemed to put the audience into a kind of trance — their minds completely blank as Ashton and Waldron’s dueling guitars filled Pianos’ main stage room. 

The next time Waldron addressed the audience, it was to introduce the performance of the band’s newest single “In Lipstick,” which easily features the band’s most original arrangements and memorable grooves. 

Idle Hours has had a years-long, winding journey to the New Colossus Festival, and they are excited to record new music when they return home. 

“Now, we're much more comfortable playing music and being ourselves,” said Ashton. “So what's coming next is a lot more authentically us.”

Idle Hours will perform one more time in New York at the New Colossus closing show at Pianos at 4:15PM on Sunday.