She may have been “sick as a dog” and visibly shaken by the fresh news of Dolly Parton’s death, but Karly Hartzman and her band still summoned a laudably committed performance in Manchester, masterfully shifting gear from glorious country crooners to vicious smash-and-grab punk in a flawless final 20 minutes.

Something’s up with Karly Hartzman. It’s not that anything with warm up number Reality TV Argument Bleeds sounds especially wrong – the lightning-bolt shocks of guitar sound full and snappy, Ethan Baechtold’s bass is growling away happily, and unassuming-looking drummer Alan Miller is plugging every gap with precision-tooled snare fills – but it just looks wrong, Hartzman staring at her feet and appearing lost in thought even as the crowd sings her words back at her. “I’m gonna be real with you,” she soon reveals. “I just found out about Dolly Parton 30 seconds before coming on and I can’t stop thinking about it.” The quiet gasps around the crowd suggest she isn’t the only one who hadn’t been checking their phone.

Wednesday’s scuzzy alt rock might not immediately call to mind the work of the rhinestoned Queen of Country, but really Wednesday are a country band, complete with their own indispensable in-house pedal steel guitarist in Xandy Chelmis. Hartzman speaks briefly but movingly about Parton’s vast cultural impact: how she redefined what it meant to be a woman in country music, how she challenged stereotypes associated with the American South (Wednesday are from North Carolina), how she was so committed to her craft and never let down her audiences.

Hartzman, it turns out, was already having one of those nights, “sick as a dog” with flu, so much so that she takes a few minutes mid-set to go backstage and change into an outfit that won’t make her overheat so much. As a result, the set is in some ways a difficult watch, and between-song patter involves Hartzman struggle to strike the balance of authenticity and upbeat showmanship. The truth is that the sweaty confines of O2 Ritz is clearly the last place she wants to be. Fatigue from a length European tour is clearly setting in too. “What was the last time we were here? Was it earlier this year?” she wonders aloud. Luckily trusty Chelmis steps in with the details of that evidently unforgettable previous Manchester gig (Yes Basement, two years ago), and Hartzman largely keeps stumm and goes through the motions for the rest of the set. It seems fitting that a concertgoer near me has vomited on the floor early on; a whiff of sick pervades this entire set.

And yet, remarkably, Wednesday still sound fabulous. Their breakout recent record, Bleeds, was a bumper compendium of spectacularly melodic guitar riffs, paired with Hartzman’s lyrical flair for evocative imagery of decaying small town America and relationships gone stale. See Wound Up Here (By Holding On) for great examples of both, Chalmis’s screeching pedal steel playing a reminder that his instrument has more to offer than just ghostly atmospherics. MJ Lenderman, Hartzman’s ex and today’s foremost country-rock guitar whizz-kid, is absent after quitting the touring band last year, but Jake “Spidey” Pugh’s glittering guitar lines on resplendent slow burner Pick Up That Knife rightly earns him the adulation of the chanting crowd. “A lot of Spideyheads in the crowd, huh,” Hartzman remarks with what could cynically be described as a vindictive smirk.

For every somewhat forgettable country snoozer (Candy Breath and How Can You Live make up a mid-set lull) there’s a gem just around the corner. Phish Pepsi’s knowingly silly pedal steel yomp has the crowd woozily bobbing along, Parton-induced grief momentarily forgotten, whilst The Way Love Goes is an achingly personal stripped-back moment met with rapt silence. The pinnacle of Wednesday’s country numbers is without doubt Elderberry Wine, a diamond in this rough, rocky set list and one of the very best songs released last year. Tonight support act Joe Harvey-Whyte joins on a second (!) pedal steel, and the resulting duet with Chalmis is dazzlingly beautiful, the notes dancing in harmony like fireflies in the Carolina night sky. A somewhat dazed Hartzman mistakenly calls for a mosh pit before the song (“well, you can mosh to this one if you want, I guess”), but the fans oblige, and there’s something heartwarming and deeply human about seeing the crowd lift up their embattled frontwoman in the form of wild dancing to a mid-tempo country ballad.

From there on out, though, mosh pits are definitely in order. Fans jostle for the centre of the room before Townies, the breezy acoustic guitar first verse offering no clue that the band’s most monstrous riff is just around the corner. “You sent my nudes around / I never yelled at you because you / Died,” Hartzman belts with startling power, nailing Wednesday’s trademark cocktail of righteous rage and creeping guilt. “I’m gonna give all I’ve got for this one,” Hartzman says with a rare glimmer of showbiz before Bull Believer. She really means it: that song is an 8-minute behemoth culminating in Hartzman writhing on floor and screaming the words “Finish him! Finish him!” into the mic. It is a bracingly intense finale the likes of which I’ve rarely seen before. Hartzman appears utterly consumed by it all, eyes scrunched and keeled over as if vomiting herself. I happen to have completed the longest run of my life earlier in the day, but inevitably feel the magnetic pull towards the pit, taking punches and gripping on to my glasses as the sonic tornado whips through the crowd. I soon tire and so do my fellow revellers, left to stand, point and sing in awestruck joy. I feel spent, but I can hardly imagine what Hartzman must be feeling. She had truly emptied the tank in the name of showbiz. Dolly would have been proud.

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