Soul Asylum Prove Some Trains Never Stop Running at Gorilla Manchester
- Desh Kapur
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
Gorilla, Manchester 8th June 2026
WORDS AND IMAGES TONI SLATER
Sat in the front bar at Gorilla, nursing a drink and watching the queue snake its way down Whitworth Street long before doors opened, it felt like a little pocket of the early '90s had somehow slipped through a crack in time. Vintage and fresh-off-the-merch-stand Soul Asylum T-shirts mingled with the usual grunge uniform of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Alice in Chains. On a warm Manchester evening, the crowd was a sea of people old enough to remember when MTV mattered and young enough to still believe rock and roll can save your soul for a couple of hours.
This was part of the wonderfully punned "Slowly But Shirley" tour, with just two UK dates, and Gorilla's intimate 600-capacity room was always going to be packed with devotees of the Minneapolis survivors. Soul Asylum have somehow managed to become one of those bands who outlived the trends that made them famous, quietly carrying on while many of their contemporaries burned brightly and disappeared.
Support came from James Brute, the alter ego of East London singer-songwriter James Steel. Backed by a band, his short set of acoustic-driven melodies and post-blues, folk noir musings was a gentle, melancholic warm-up for the evening. There was an endearingly old-school moment when he paused proceedings to pass a clipboard, pen and paper through the audience to collect mailing list details.
"It's good to refer back to the '90s on occasion," he laughed.
Quite right too. Nobody had to scan a QR code and somehow civilisation carried on.
Soul Asylum wandered onto the stage in an almost gloriously chaotic fashion, looking less like rock stars and more like a gang of mates who'd accidentally found themselves in a sold-out venue. Opening with 2024 single The Only Thing I'm Missing, they were warmly received, but it didn't take long for the familiar opening of Somebody to Shove to send the crowd into life. Suddenly, everyone remembered exactly where they were and why they'd turned up.
Dave Pirner has perfected the art of looking like he couldn't care less while simultaneously holding the whole thing together. His slacker charisma remains intact, but musically the band are razor sharp, and Pirner's voice has lost little of its power. The years have roughened the edges in all the right places. Between songs he peppers the set with a handful of dad jokes that land with varying degrees of success. It's fair to say his songwriting and musicianship have always been stronger than his stand-up routine, but that's part of the charm. Soul Asylum have never traded in rock star pretension, and the easy-going banter only adds to the warmth that hangs over the night.
The set balances nostalgia with the present day, mixing fan favourites with newer material that proves they're still creatively alive rather than simply running a heritage act. Made to Be Broken serves as a reminder that this band have been plugging away for over four decades, surviving changing fashions, line-up changes and the shifting tides of the music business.
Then comes Runaway Train.
It's impossible to separate the song from its cultural footprint. The Grammy-winning hit, complete with its unforgettable MTV video, could easily have become a burden to a band with a catalogue this deep, but Soul Asylum play it with exactly the emotional weight it deserves. No irony, no trying to reinvent it, just a beautifully measured performance from a band comfortable enough in its own skin to let the song speak for itself. The audience responds in kind, singing every word.
By this point it's obvious that Soul Asylum are enjoying themselves as much as the crowd are. They're relaxed, loose and completely at home on stage, the kind of confidence that only comes from decades spent doing exactly this.
The night closes with live favourite String of Pearls, the Gorilla crowd singing along with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for football terraces, before the perfectly scruffy, gloriously ragged April Fool brings proceedings to an end. Pirner throws in a few hip swings that would make Axl Rose smile, if not necessarily worry about the competition.
There are reunion tours and nostalgia trips, and then there are bands like Soul Asylum, who simply keep turning up, making music and reminding people why they mattered in the first place. Forty-plus years in, they still have the songs, they still have the heart, and judging by the faces leaving Gorilla into the Manchester night, they're still exactly the band a lot of people needed them to be.
SET LIST
1. Only Thing I’m Missin
2. Shove
3. Made to be Broken
4. Misery
5. Trial by Fire
6. Little too Clean
7. Freeloader
8. Never Really Been
9. Without a Trace
10. New World
11. High Road
12. Sucker Maker
13. Freak Accident
14. Black Gold
15. Runaway Train
16. Bus Named Desire
17. Bittersweetheart
18. Just Like Anyone
19. String of Fools
20. April Fool
FOLLOW SOUL ASYLUM