Osees at The Ritz, Manchester 16.06.2025

On May 3rd 2013, Thee Oh Sees (as they were then known) played at The Kazimier in Liverpool as part of that year’s Sound City festival.  The venue, potentially my favourite venue ever, was a perfect stage for the band’s vibrancy, volume, and energy.  It was a gig that has passed down in contemporary folklore, the Lesser Free Trade Hall moment of the (admittedly niche) Merseyside psychedelic scene of the 2010’s.  I mention all this because that night I wasn’t there.  I was at a different stage of the festival and missed it; it’s rankled ever since.

Over 12 years later the opportunity finally rolled around again – now known as Osees, at the Ritz on a Monday night.

If you’re not familiar with the band, they’re likely placed somewhere on a Venn diagram of garage rock, psych rock, surrealism and noise.  And they sound absolutely amazing.  

After a refreshingly-DIY few minutes with the band members actually setting up their own equipment, the band open with Withered Hand, Ticklish Warrior, and Toe Cutter-Thumb Buster.  The latter is this writer’s favourite track of theirs and for a lot of bands would be the end-of-show epic to go out on.  That Osees can throw it in the opening songs shows the strength and depth of their discography.

From the bassline crescendo of the opening song, the band simply do not stop.  They’re in sync, they’re loud, and the crowd responds- by the time the less-psych-more-just-hardcore Funeral Solution is played, there’s a good healthy pit taking up a chunk of the floor and crowd surfers are taking their positions up high.

This incarnation of the band is a quintet with, naturally, two drummers.  Dan Rincon and Paul Quattrone have been behind their respective kits together for around 8 years now and it shows, as they perfectly complement each other all night.  Slightly different styles and fills, but mostly playing the same beats, they’re tight as anything and at no point does 2 drummers appear superfluous.  Tim Hellman (bass) and Tomas Dolas (keys) are the driving, reliable foundations for the music to build upon.

It’s frontman and founder John Dwyer that steals the show though.  For the whole night he’s a masculine blur; jumping, head-banging, often holding his guitar chest-height like a gun as if he’s playing laser tag with his kids.  Yet like the rest of the band he doesn’t miss a note, and keeps the vacuum inside the venue intact for the entire gig.

Osees are also incredibly prolific and their setlist comes from roughly 14 different albums.  The vibe of the show never dips though, and the energy of the band is the golden thread throughout the whole 90 minutes they’re on stage.  It’s sweaty, loud, and intense, in the best ways possible.

Scuzzy DJ Container had opened the show with his dirty, dubstep-esque beats which clearly warmed the crowd up a little, despite the apparently jarring genres on the bill.  

But it was an entirely triumphant return to the northwest for Osees which stole the show and, likely, the coveted Gig of the Year mantle for most of those in the audience.