After the release of their self-produced seventh and final album ‘Lowborn’, Anberlin return to their UK leg of their worldwide Final Tour.
The band came onstage to a large round of applause and cheers from the Manchester crowd before beginning their set with ‘Paperthin Hymn‘ and ‘We Owe This To Ourselves’. Frontman Stephen Christian then thanked the crowd and claimed to sense that the show would be a great one, as someone throws on a lovenote onstage, resulting in Christian jokingly reading out a phone number. He speaks of the musical influences from Manchester (The Smiths, Oasis) and encourages anyone who is in a band to continue and they could become the next Anberlin.
Delving heavily into ‘Self-Starter’ the drum beat had the crowd jumping on their feet, along with the fast-paced guitar riffs before heading back to their first album with ‘Readyfuels’. The synth beginning of ‘Someone Anyone’ had the crowd clapping and dancing throughout the entire song, while ending with a heavy riff.
Mid-way through the set, the band brought down the tempo with their some of their slower tracks ‘(The Symphony Of) Blasé’, and with the resonating line “This is our last goodnight“, you could feel the emotion in the air with members of the audience shouting “Don’t go!”. Christian mentions having just travelled from Warped Tour in the United States, and claims that this show is the best so far, including all the shows combined.
The acoustic intro starts for ‘The Unwinding Cable Car’ and the crowd sings the entire first verse before Christian joins in. Bringing the tempo back up with ‘Impossible’, the band ended their set with favourites ‘The Resistance’, ‘Godspeed’ and for ‘Feel Good Drag’ the crowd held Christian up and above them while they sang the penultimate chorus back at the band with passion.
For the encore, the crowd were chanting and cheering for the band to return to the stage and for their final song, the fittingly ended with ‘(*Fin)’. With the full version played, it was an emotional moment for fans and band alike as they left the stage for the final time.