Self Deception at Manchester Academy 3 – 5/03/25

Crushed by Waves

Manchester marks the first date of Self Deception?s debut headline tour in the UK, with Eyes Wide Open set to be supporting this leg of the ?Destroy The Art? tour, however due to illness had to pull out. This left a gap in the line-up which was filled by Manchester?s own Crushed by Waves, and what better way to start the tour than in Manchester itself. Between the high energy and crowd interaction, including jumping into the middle of the crowd, you?d think the band were the headliners as the audience were loving it, this performance definitely solidified them as one to watch.

TheCityIsOurs

With the epic start from Crushed by Waves, I couldn?t think of a better support band to follow than TheCityIsOurs, who brought even more energy to the stage. Oli and Mikey?s vocals compliment each other extremely well, this along with the chemistry of the band overall and their energetic stage presence result in a band that is always fun to see. With the recent release of ?Will You Still Love Me??, the band had plenty of brilliant new songs under their belt to blow the audience away with.

Self Deception

Finally we come to the headliners, Self Deception, who came to the stage led by bassist Patrik ?Hagge? Hallgren with his neon fur coat and backed by Rednex song ?Cotton Eye Joe?. The band started off strong with the first song of the night, ?Blood & Scars? from their latest album ?Destroy The Art?. Not only were most of the songs played on the night from that album, they also leaned into the pink theme from the album cover, with Hagge sporting an all pink outfit, guitarist Ronny had his pink guitar strap, singer Andreas opting for pink tape on his microphone, with Erik?s black and pink drumkit and of course, plenty of pink lighting throughout the performance.

The first song of the night which wasn?t from the new album, ?Intoxicated Haze? began with the singer getting the crowd to shout ?Hi Andreas? after each time he spoke, which after a couple of rounds of practising, he said ?Hi, I?m Andreas and I?m an alcoholic?, followed by the impactful performance of the song. He later referenced back to this moment when an audience member shouted about getting drunk and Andreas light-heartedly responds with ?You can come to a meeting with me? before carrying on to introduce the next song.

Overall, the constant high energy, even during the more hard hitting songs, made it a great show to attend and it was immediately clear why people had travelled far and wide to get to Manchester to see the band on the first night of their debut UK headliner.