Pierce the Veil - Manchester Co-op Live - 25th September 2025
- Sam Wall
- Sep 29, 2025
- 3 min read
Pierce the Veil’s Manchester date on the I Can’t Hear You tour felt like a homecoming for generations of fans who’ve watched their favourite band go from medium sized venues and mid-roster festival sets to arena mainstays. The Co-op Live floor was a hotbed of voices long before the intro riff hit with some fans I chatted to on the barrier saying they’d been queueing throughout the night to claim their spot and be a close as possible to their heroes.
The night was bolstered by three opening acts with Crawlers, Hot Mulligan and and Cavetown on this run. In order to catch Crawlers you had to get their early as the came on just before 6 but they opened the nights proceedings in the best way with a whole lot of bite, angst and growling momentum.
Up next, Hot Mulligan built on what Crawlers started and brought their emo anthems and ragged screaming lyrics that managed to fill the arena as fans were still piling in. In contrast to the first two openers Cavetown’s music hits a little different, their quieter moments created a softer, more emotional atmosphere that slowed the pacing and gave the now full arena some time to breath and brace themselves before Pierce the Veil came out to blow the roof off.
From the dimming of the lights and the stage filling with smoke the crowd erupted into screams before the first chord was struck. The silhouettes of the band cutting through the fog was enough to send everyone into fits of frenzy. Vic Fuentes’ voice rung out and it was hard to believe the fans could get any louder but they did. As they blasted into the first song, Death of an Executioner, guitarist Tony and bassist Jamie used every inch of the huge stage to their advantage, running around and flinging themselves this way and that each time to the jubilation of the crowd.
The band sounded confident on this large scale stage playing songs that still carry the odd, jagged emo hooks that made them essential to so many teenagers’ playlists. The visuals were relatively simple for a show of this scale but that just made us focus fully on the music, the yellow lights and quick camera cuts mixed with imagery from the albums was more than enough to keep the show going in the right direction, although some confetti cannons are always appreciated…
The setlist had a bit of everything from their 5 albums with more emphasis on their latest, The Jaws of Life, and arguably their greatest, Collide with the Sky with the biggest hits, Bulls in the Bronx, Pass the Nirvana and Hell Above being at the beginning and the end of the set respectively. They even threw in a cover of Pixies, Where is my Mind as a homage to one of their biggest influences.
For a tour designed to span their five albums, the balance between old favourites and newer material mostly worked as it was clear some songs inevitably just hit a little harder than others. Of course that didn’t stop the surge of circle pits during Circles and the near constant stream of crowd surfers throughout the show
We all knew what was going to be played last, by the end of their 17 song set the final encore couldn’t be anything but King for a Day and as expected brought the biggest, loudest response along with it where at times it was hard to hear the band over the crowd! Pierce the Veil left the stage having delivered a big picture, career-spanning show. Grand enough for an arena yet intimate enough to keep the spirit of what made them idols in the eyes of so many
Article & Photography By Sam Wall
Sounds like an amazing show! I can only imagine how awesome it must have sounded with all those fans singing along. Speaking of getting the sound right, I've been using an Online Tool for Bass Guitar Tuning to keep my bass sounding its best. Maybe the band uses one too!