The Hunna at Manchester Apollo, review: Desperately in need of a distinctive style

If they explore the heavier side of their repertoire more, they might just find a discernible sound they can call their own

The Hunna performing live (Live at Leeds/Andrew Benge)

“Manchester always feels like coming home a bit… three of us are United fans,” shouts Ryan Potter, lead singer of Hertfordshire band The Hunna. As stereotypes of southern-based Manchester United supporters go, this is an early own goal as the rest of Potter’s opening words to the Manchester Apollo crowd were drowned out on Saturday by jeers and chants from the City fans in attendance.

More football “bantz” followed and for a moment, this isn’t a gig in the bright early stages of 2018, but one in the dark depths of 2006 where MOR indie-rock gigs followed a special formula. Indie-rock paint by numbers – check! Laddish swearing – check! Songs that sound a bit like The Wombats – check! As openings go, this isn’t an auspicious one.

“Summer” is a bright enough beginning played with buckets of rocky enthusiasm. Yet the choice of “Still Got Blood” immediately after feels like a brusque change in momentum, its more theatrical moments being perhaps more suited to the closing, climatic stages of a gig. The guitars on “We Could Be” feel like an Eighties throwback and by the time “Never Enough” kicks in with its Kings of Leon-like undertones, it is a struggle to know just what The Hunna are about, a mere four songs in.

They are certainly an excellent example of a self-made social media band. With millions of Spotify streams, they’ve built a fiercely loyal online fan base and they’ve sold out two nights in both Manchester and London. They work especially hard at making their young fans feel as though they were the best in the world: “Every time we play Manchester, the shows are f**king insane,” Potter tells them, adding similar accolades time and time again throughout the evening.

Little changes after the band’s uneven opening; a lengthy stretch of the gig has no cohesion, nor does the band exhibit any distinctive style. Yet hope is to be found, if only momentarily, in the shape of The Hunna’s latest material which channels what they’re best at: playing their instruments really, really loudly. When they dispense with the mid-noughties identikit-indie and instead produce a heavier, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard-metal like sound, they manage to find both a musical style and an identity that is distinctly theirs. New song “Dare” is certainly a much needed highlight.

Sadly, though, it is short lived. Any true spirit of metal is entirely destroyed when the band emerge for the encore wearing matching white jackets which spelled out “DARE” in bright red letters. With confetti cannons and fireworks thrown in a little later, it is the kind of album plug moment that makes you hold your head in your hands and think of Take That at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party circa 1993.

The Hunna are ultimately a band in desperate need of some musical and thematic cohesion. If they explore the heavier side of their repertoire more, they might just find a discernible sound they can call their own. Until then, they risk going the same way as almost every other mid-2000 indie-rock outfit they seem oddly desperate to emulate.