After 1172 days away, Royal Canoe made a triumphant returned to Manchester last night for a performance in front of a small but very enthusiastic crowd at the Castle Hotel.

Their set comprising of songs from 2013’s Today We’re Believers and last years Something Got Lost Between Here And The Orbit came across, to my ears at least, flawlessly.

Since the venue was so small it was difficult for them to leave the stage for the, now mandatory, encore at the end of their set but when Matt Peters pointed out that the would be staying on stage a round of applause and cries for more went around the room as if they had left and the band played their part by acting as if we had been through the usual process.

Continuing backwards to the support act we find The Vanity Project featuring Rob Paterson and Flora Jackson. Self described as a “multi-instrumentalising, loop pedal-driving duo, playing messy, weird, yet poppy music and far more instruments than it’s wise for two people to play.”

I was worried when, before the set began they started throwing out party paraphernalia such as balloons, noise makers, party hats and, party poppers but all this was put to one side when the started playing and by the end I could understand why they were crowned winners of iSessions last year.

This brings us to the opener, as she says herself a chick and a cello who you should really hear live and you don’t know what you are missing until you here her cover of Hotline Bling by some Canadian bloke very few people have heard of (apparently he likes ducks… I said ducks!)