Believe the Hype: Die Spitz Bring The Noise @ Manchester Gorilla

Words by Kaitlyn Brockley

In recent memory, it’s hard to recall a band that has captured rock music’s hearts quite like Die Spitz. Exploding onto the scene in 2022, the band have rapidly built themselves a reputation for raucous live shows, garnering the attention of household names like Amyl and the Sniffers and Viagra Boys to say the least. Their debut U.K tour finds them selling out revered venues across the country, including Manchester which was hastily upgraded from the cosy 260 cap Deaf Institute to the swaggering Gorilla, a venue tucked unassumingly underneath the rail tracks of Manchester Oxford Road. It’s a fitting venue for the Austen quarter, whose live shows have been renowned for their sweaty, boisterous energy, and their ability to pack bodies into a room. This show is no different, bodies are crammed into every crevice, limbs snaking around shadowy corners, trickling up the stairs. 

Kicking off the night is Manchester’s own Aerial Salad, a band at first that seems not to fit the bill for tonight: the boys burst onto the stage with a choreographed routine, as if just nabbed from the streets of Northern Quarter, in Stone Island jeans that Liam Gallagher would be proud of. But all worries are dispelled as they rip into the set, powering through a stacked 30-minute setlist with scarcely time to breathe, channeling the same ferocious energy that can be seen in the headliners. The Madchester influence is clear to see - “King of the Grass” pokes fun at the bassists’ side hustle as a gardener with Rochdale council (irresistibly comparable of course to Blur’s “Parklife”) but look closer and you’ll find a sharp edge: whilst the lyrical content may have the wink-wink nudge-nudge of Britpop, the sound is much more abrasive, harking to recent post-punk acts like Shame. The crowd laps it up, set up for a night of chaos so happy to partake in a moshpit, getting limbs thoroughly warmed up. 

Then at 9pm on the dot the lights dim and Die Spitz emerge to Kylie Minogue. But make no mistake, Die Spitz have come to make some noise so Kylie is cut to launch immediately into “I hate when GIRLS die”, causing some members of the audience to cautiously hurry over to the front from the bar, pints wobbling precariously. The energy is there from the start, hair explodes around heads and arms fly into the air. Racing through “Monkey Song” and “American Porn”, it’s hard to associate the article on stage to a band relatively early into their career: the band operate like a well-oiled machine, tight and unphased by the chaos erupting centimetres below them in the crowd. Their bond is clear, they dance around on stage together as if its their bedrooms, catching each others’ eyes every so often to share their appreciation for the moment. 

For “Punishers” and “Groping Dogs Gushing Blood”, drummer Chloe De St. Aubin and guitarist Ava Schrobilgen rotate for a gentler moment in the set. “Punishers” sees them step away from classic punk and sludge tropes to something more brooding, simultaneously soft and thunderous, hinting at their eclectic mix of influences like Title Fight. Their willingness to shapeshift as band and explore different sounds (and for those sounds to work!) is what makes the band so interesting to watch and promises exciting things for their future, and what that may sound like. 

The riot-grrrl label often gets thrown around for Die Spitz, a lazy categorisation from journalists who see four girls with instruments and happily lop them into that box. The band themselves have contested that label, but one link that does connect them to that scene is the political activism that runs through the band. During the show, vocalist and guitarist Ellie Livingston takes a moment to discuss the political state of the U.S right now (“FUCK ICE”), a sentiment that reads all too true in the U.K and its grapples with right-wing agendas. For “RIDING WITH MY GIRLS”, the girls in the audience are invited to the front, gladly pushing their way through a small sea of Radio 6 Dads to mosh and take up space in an environment that was made for that sole purpose. 

For a first UK tour, the expectations were incredibly high. Die Spitz’ reputation precedes them, and for good reason: the show was chaotic, frenetic, sweaty, everything that was promised. But what made it special wasn’t necessarily the sheer chaos (though Livingston ascending the speakers was a personal highlight), it was the ability to find quieter, more intense moments in the set, the skill of still finding the chaos within the calm. The future is bright for Die Spitz, and something tells me they’re only just getting started.