Elles Bailey – Band On The Wall, Manchester: Live Review

By Mark Lear on 27th March 2026 • ( Leave a comment )

Elles Bailey, Caitlin Krisko And The Broadcast – Band On The Wall, Manchester – 24th March 2026

BLUES, BLUES AND MORE BLUES

Tonight finishes off a busy month nicely, with a lady who has hit the heights in no uncertain terms since I first saw her back in 2017, at Cyprus Avenue in Cork, on the periphery of the Jazz Festival. If that isn’t enough to excite the senses, its beyond belief to hear that the support is another lady that is pretty special in the Blues world and also made great strides since they first set foot on our green and pleasant land a few years ago, as support for Robert Jon and The Wreck.

There’s a bit of confusion to deal with as well, as it was announced that the gig was sold out – no surprise there – until Elles herself put out a note on Facebook to say there were some places left and pay on the door was possible – gotta sell those tickets! It would have been easy to stay in though as the weather is truly awful, with the heavens having opened a few hours ago, and it shows no signs of abating soon.

Anyway, enough pre-amble, lets get on with it.

Caitlin Krisko And The Broadcast

Krisko and her band hail from Ashville, North Carolina and have built up a good following over the past few years. The three boys in the band can definitely play and the lady can most definitely sing. From Supporting Robert Jon and The Wreck a few years ago, to a couple of Headline tours of their own last year, they’re hear at the request of Ms. Bailey herself, who said she ‘specially selected them’ as Support for this Tour. They’ve travelled light though as only one of the three Broadcast has made it over, guitarist Aaron Austin provides the accompaniment for Caitlin – as he does ‘in real life’ seeing as they got married a few months ago.

Recent single Let It Ride is the opener, which is a bluesy a tune as you’ll ever hear, and it sets the scene nicely for those that haven’t heard of them before – and straight away Manchester likes what it hears. They won’t be too unknown though as one of their headline dates, a while back, was at Night & Day Café. Blue Heron, a big favourite of Krisko fans follows, before she really lets the vocals shine with a Ray Charles cover of Drown in My Own Tears. If anyone was in doubt of her talent, they sure know now.

MORE TO COME

Austin is as attentive as ever with some wonderful acoustic work that’s there when its needed and steps back to let that vocal cut through, when the time is right. Everything I Need is a song released for this Support Tour with only 200 copies available and only forty left, which is some going after three nights, but it shows what an impact can be made when the talent is that good.

Haunted By You is another soulful, blues ballad with captivating vocals and it’s no wonder that it topped Spotify’s Blues Ballads playlist and it’s an excellent way to run down the clock before they finish with an Allman Bros tune (which they often do at some point), Come And Go Blues which damn near brought the house down for a support. A huge cheer echoed around the place and there’ll be a good few people now waiting patiently for October, when the full band return for a nine date tour, starting in Bristol on the 1^st and finishing up in Barnoldswick on the 10th. Manchester doesn’t make the cut this time around, but Llandudno does, so off to the seaside then !! It will be worth it. Always is.

Now, it’s time for a quick trip to the bar whilst the changeover takes place and the Austin Family make their way to the Merch Table to shift the last copies of the limited edition single, and everything else they’ve brought with them so that the luggage bill home doesn’t happen.

ELLES BAILEY

Now, this’ll be the fourth time that I’ve reviewed Elles Bailey and I could just stop here, by saying she’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, but I’d better show some sort of creativity, I suppose, so here goes…

Nine years ago, she was a static artist in Cork together with Joe Wilkins and one other. In fairness it was an acoustic set but now performances she her bouncing all around the stage surrounded by seven others. It used to be five, but tonight, there’s a twist in the tail as a brass section has been added for the first time – more on that later.

All the usuals suspects are there, so there’s already a homely feel to things. As well as Wilkins, Jonny Henderson is there straddled by two Viscount Legends and a gorgeous Leslie cabinet behind him. Matthew Waer does the honours on bass, with the nattiest shade of blue nail varnish that fashionably compliments his shirt, whilst Matthew Jones bashes some solid beats on drums; and then of course, there’s Demi Marriner on acoustic and BV’s and now with added percussion. Is there no bounds to her talent ?

CAN’T TAKE MY STORY AWAY

The night kicks off with the title track for the tour, Can’t Take My Story Away which is a really good start, and gets everybody into the groove straight away. It’s quickly followed up with Growing Roots, also from the new album, which is becoming a bit anthemic with audience participation becoming obligatory.

With quite a back catalogue to choose from now, it must get difficult to choose which added material to choose – in addition to the album tracks they’re there to ‘advertise’, but one that always gets included is Bailey’s tribute Matt Long, of Catfish fame, who sadly died at a ridiculously young age. Bailey has sung the song countless times and we should all be getting used to it by now, but her performance of it always puts a lump in your throat.

How Do You Do It and Deeper bring the tempo back up a few levels though and it’s a pleasure to see bailey enjoying herself so much when she sings them. In between she’s quite chatty and constantly gives a look of the cat that’s got the cream. A look of achievement after batting away after all these years. She admits as much and still can’t believe that its happened – but it has and now that she’s a regular in BBC Radio 2’s playlist, it’s not going tom stop anytime soon.

ADDED BRASS

Help Somebody sees Henderson put that Legend and Leslie through its paces and with that added brass dimension, it’s just divine. Trumpet is by Paul Jordanous, who also worked out all of the brass arrangements after having some face / confidence to tell Elles on the Rag’n’Bone Man Tour that she was in need of some brass in her live performances! Fortunately, she agreed, and the rest, as they say, is history. Sophie Stockham-Brown buddies up on saxophone and the whole, round sound is pure joy – and that brass can’t be taken away now. It has to become a permanent fixture even though the profitability of the tour will take a hit – or the ticket prices will go up, one or the other.

If things weren’t already on a high, things got a little higher when Caitlin Krisko joined Elles on stage for a cover of Bonnie Raitt’s Love Me Like a Man. Blimey, does it get any better than this ! Ms. Bailey is even kind enough to give Caitlin a big Merch plug afterwards – such generosity.

CONSTANT NEED TO KEEP GOING

Constant Need to Keep Going tells Bailey’s story of the last three years, whilst writing the songs for this tour and the same time as promoting Beyond the Neon Glow. 1972 is also a ‘must include’ as is Angel which had a sublime horn solo in it from Jordanous. Oh my !

Bailey admits that “I can’t leave Neon Glow alone just yet,” so the final three are all from that album. Love Yourself telling of how much she hated her own body until she “grew a human inside of it “ and it made her realise just how much she now appreciated it. Leave the Light On, written with Joe Wilkins, who showed off his prowess with a belting solo in the middle, about her husband who stays at home with the five year old so she can come out to play, and perform this stuff for us, and If This Is Love takes us to the close.

Or rather it doesn’t, because after they all leave the stage, they all return for an encore double header. What’s the Matter With You starts everything off with the band playing away whilst a voice comes from nowhere. It takes a while for us all to realise that Elles is making her way from the back of the room to the stage, with lots of handshakes and thanks (for coming) handed out as she does so – this is no mean task, in a way as the place is packed. When she finally gets there and back from and centre, she launches into Take A Step Back which sends Manchester in raptures and the applause at the end was unbelievable.

HITTING THE HEIGHTS

I said at the beginning that Bailey has now hit the heights – that she was always destined for – with hard graft and determination together with a talent for songwriting and performing that’s been justified and confirmed by Support Slots with Don McClean, Beth Hart and most recently Rag’n’Bone Man, a bucket load of trophies from the UK Blues Awards and that recognition from the country’s biggest radio station. Fame doesn’t come easy, but it does, when you’ve got that Constant Need To Keep Going’ – see what I did there?!

Until the next time.