666 : Liberation Day, Be Free of Your Phone Shackles!

This coming Tuesday all eyes will be on Manchester. Now we Mancunians will argue that the glare of the world is always on us (we were created on the eighth day after all), but this is different. This Tuesday, Ghost, the first metal band to break into the mainstream lexicon since Linkin Park, if not the mighty Metallica, will begin their latest global tour in the smaller of our two twenty-two thousand capacity arenas (told you we do it differently in Manchester). But the reason there will be such a focus on the show isn’t because the contents of the spectacular is currently a well-hidden enigma, it isn’t because they seem to have opted not to have a support act (À la Metallica circa Black album) and isn’t because, aside from the brill ‘Satanized’, all their new stuff is tantalisingly under wraps.

Skeletá Coming April 25th

The reason the world will be watching the AO Arena with interest is that Ghost are going phone-free. Not in a passive-aggressive “please don’t use them” way like Tool or Nightwish, but in a strict we are going to stop you using them in the first place manner. They will be the first band from our world to use Yondr pouches. Bob Dylan has dabbled with them, Alicia Keys has utilised them and Kanye West swears by them (so we believe). But they have yet to enter the gravitational pull of our world, with even the aforementioned phonophobic Tool viewing them as a step too far. 

The theory is that you are issued a pouch on entry (which alarmingly retail for £25 each), your phone is magnetically sealed within and you carry it into the gig, secure in your possession but unusable. Apparently, if you do need to make an emergency call, send an urgent text or watch an unmissable cute cat video, there will be special “unlock” zones on the concourse offering fleeting methadone-like access for your digital addiction. We say theory as we will see on Tuesday how it works, whether it causes massive entry queues and, being Manchester, whether they get any back….

We know that Uncle Tobias wants to keep his latest theatrical masterpiece a secret (there is no media allowed at this opening salvo, we here at ROCKFLESH have had to fork out for tickets like the rest of you) but are they being heavy handed not even allowing you to check the Villa v PSG  score? Gig photos have become an essential part of the concert experience, haven’t they? Watching the show through someone's view screen is just the price you pay for the luxury of being able to fill your data card with lots of blurred shots that you will never look at again. Whilst great swathes of internet-land feel that this is a direct infringement of civil liberties, we here at ROCKFLESH tower applaud and welcome the move. 

Catch Your Breath though a phone at Rebellion in Manchester on April 10th 2025 ©Johann Wierzbicki

Nickelback at AO Arena in Manchester on May 20th 2024 ©Johann Wierzbicki

We send our Johann, Ryan, Jason and Darren all over the northwest so that you can have pristine, well-manicured shots of your heroes that are a million times better than anything you can achieve on your Samsung (heck, you can even purchase them here). You don’t need to take photos as the professional ones will always be better, end of story. Just put it away in the Yondr pouch that you will be half inching at the end of the night to stick on eBay, and let the press pack do its job. 

Same,  goes for videos. I remember when live footage was a rarity. I remember purchasing VHS’s of “Live After Death” and “Live at Donington” just to see what Iron Maiden and AC/DC were like live. But now YouTube is full of unfocused blurry snippets captured from the back row of section ZZ. You have a memory and there inevitably will be a live DVD, you don’t need to film it. To steal a phrase from Monsieur Trump, Tuesday is Liiberation Day. The day music casts off the phone and learns to embrace the moment and we can't bloody wait.