“Fantastic Days and Funk-Soaked Resurrection - Haircut One Hundred Turn Back Time at Manchester’s Albert Hall”

Luke Storey
3 hours ago
3 min read

The Albert Hall , Manchester, May 9th , 2026

WORDS / IMAGES LUKE STOREY (ShotbyStorey)

Fantastic Days and Funk-Soaked Resurrection - Haircut One Hundred Turn Back Time at Manchester’s Albert Hall — Photo Credit Luke Storey

There are venues that feel like they’re merely hosting gigs, and then there’s Albert Hall — this towering cathedral of sweat, booze and bad decisions hanging gloriously beneath stained glass like rock ’n’ roll accidentally wandered into Sunday service.

On Friday night the old church creaked and groaned with middle-aged anticipation, full of people who once probably danced to cassette tapes in bedrooms painted magnolia and now shuffled toward the bar discussing train times and cholesterol. But the room still had that electricity Manchester venues get before a beloved band walks on stage — that strange feeling that something lost in time might briefly become alive again.

Stone Foundation kicked things off stripped right down from their usual brass-fed soul machine, just bass, keys and acoustic guitar, but they worked the room like seasoned pub philosophers. Talking about old Manchester haunts like Band on the Wall and Rebellion, they eased everyone into the night with “I Believe in Love” and “Back to My Roots,” songs that rolled through the hall like warm pints being slid across sticky bars. By the end of their set the crowd had loosened up enough to remember they once had hips.

Then came Haircut One Hundred, those improbable survivors of the bright young 80s pop explosion, arriving not with a bang but with a spoken environmental warning about Britain’s poisoned waters — a strangely earnest opening that somehow worked because this band have always existed in that peculiar space between sophistication and total absurd joy. And then suddenly there they were: four men older, looser, maybe wiser, backed by brass and percussion, grinning like they’d just found the fountain of youth backstage next to the rider. The chemistry was immediate and completely infectious. The bassist lounged through grooves with the cool of a man who knows exactly where the beat lives. The drummer attacked everything like he’d been cryogenically frozen in 1982 and thawed out specifically for this tour. The guitarist looked deliriously happy just to be alive. And frontman Nick Heyward still carried that effortless smoothness which made these songs work in the first place.

The classics detonated the room. “Love Plus One” and “Favourite Shirts” turned the Albert Hall floor into one giant bouncing organism — people dancing in the aisles, spilling drinks, singing every line with the kind of commitment usually reserved for football chants or divorces. Nobody stayed still because these songs were never meant to be listened to politely. They’re fizzy, nervous little funk-pop miracles built for movement. The newer material slotted in surprisingly well too, especially “Raincloud” in the encore, but everybody knew what they were waiting for. And when “Fantastic Day” finally arrived it felt less like a song and more like collective surrender. Suddenly the room wasn’t full of ageing gig-goers anymore; it was packed with younger versions of themselves, resurrected for three glorious minutes beneath the lights of this beautiful church. Haircut One Hundred didn’t just play a nostalgia set — they reminded everybody why these songs mattered in the first place. Bright, stylish, euphoric pop music with enough heart to survive the decades. And for one night in Manchester, it