From mid-afternoon, a queue of brightly dressed people with expertly dyed, multi-coloured hair forms outside Manchester Academy. There’s excitement in the sticky, hot air. Camaraderie and community, too – many of these people know each other, have done for years; though the last time they saw tonight’s headliner, Hayley Williams, in a 3,000-capacity venue was probably around the time they last checked their MySpace friend list. Her last visit to the UK was opening up for Taylor Swift on her stadium tour with her band Paramore, who’ve been playing arenas since 2010. Tonight is a rare treat, and it’s going to be very, very special.
Once on stage, Williams agrees. “Wow,” she giggles, sitting at a grand piano. “Getting to play rooms like this… now that’s the real dream.” She surveys the crowd before launching into ‘Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party’, the title track from her critically acclaimed third solo album, which she dedicates to her hometown of Nashville. This album sees Williams at her most vulnerable, and the intimate tour setting is a deliberate attempt to connect with fans she, too, has grown up with.
Paramore cultivated a real community of fans outsider-ed by the outsiders; queer people, women, Black people, trans+ people – the list goes on – who were excluded by the white boy club of rock music. Williams became a surrogate older sister for a generation of teenagers who not only felt, but were, rejected by society around them. As she launches into ‘Kill Me’ (“Eldest daughters never miss their chances / To learn the hardest lessons again and again…”), the room vibrates with empowered rage.
She has consistently taken the brunt of a misogynistic scene, industry and world, and stood up against it: owning her failures, dissecting her heartbreaks and empowering us to do the same along the way. There’s certainly a parasocial element to Williams’ career, and this crowd contains an abundance of past Hayleys: ‘Decode’’s red hair, checkerboard miniskirts and Vans, huge t-shirts with no trousers. By her on-stage confidence, it seems she has now embraced herself not as a symbol of those who’ve been oppressed, but instead as an active, fiery voice against her – and anyone’s – oppressors.
While ‘Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party’ is indeed a deep exploration and acceptance of all the feelings life can bring, it’s also an examination of where the personal and the political meet. The most special moments of the show include the ballad ‘True Believer’, in which the audience’s pin-drop silence is broken by the clamouring call to arms “The south will not rise again …. ’Til it’s paid for every sin”.
During ‘Ice In My OJ’ – a song about her teenage exploitation by the music industry – Williams screams “Free Palestine!” to huge whoops and cheers (during her North American tour, she instead screamed “Fuck ICE”). Capitalism, corrupt politicians, and with the heatwave sweltering on outside (“This is the hottest show I’ve played in a very long time,” she shares), climate change are all topics of discussion on stage, by Williams and the brilliantly weird Water From Your Eyes, who played an electric and intense support slot.
Despite the rage at the world outside, to us, Williams has mastered the balance of where you end and where the world’s problems begin: how to do your bit without suffocating under despair. On stage, she’s as jovial as ever, pointing finger guns at her band, adorning herself with devil horns, dancing around and chatting to fans in the crowd. Her voice commands the room without effort, and the crowd moves as one to her every cue. ‘Hayley Williams At A Bachelorette Party’, as this tour is called, feels like an old-school reunion with family you only see once every five years – and, to be honest, that’s exactly what it is.
Hayley Williams played:
‘Mirtazapine’
‘Showbiz’
‘Disappearing Man’
‘Zissou’
‘Ice In My OJ’
‘Hard’
‘Kill Me’
‘Blood Bros’
‘Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party’
‘Whim’
‘Glum’
‘Negative Self Talk’
‘True Believer’
‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’
‘Brotherly Hate’
‘Love Me Different’
‘Dream Girl In Shibuya’
‘Good Ol’ Days’
‘Discovery Channel’
‘I Won’t Quit On You’
‘Parachute’