 As far as rock n’ roll locations go, Manchester has always been the double Jack Daniels in the round. There is no other city quite like Manchester, forever whistling a tune, swaying to a beat, raving flat out, this city is central to the development of British music and it still keeps giving.
From that infamous moment that kicked it all off in 1976: Tony Wilson in awe at the Sex Pistols, watching alongside Joy Division, Buzzcocks and The Smiths; the dawn of punk. Joy Division signing to Factory and creating a sound that grimly defined Manchester at the close of the 70s. The emergence of post punk and Mark E Smith’s own inventive sound.. it possesses a ridiculously shovelled on, painted thick history.
Things have been quiet for a while with emerging Manchester bands, unless of course you count wannabe Mancs, Kasabian. Or more accurately, with the total spread and ease of access to popular culture, bands are propping up everywhere, and don’t necessarily need the reliance on a scene or community to come to our attention.
Manchester bands aside, the city for the last fifteen years has been home to In The City. An almost unbelievable feat on paper; an annual event in the UK where at least 500 hundred bands grace the stages of the cities’ numerous venues. It’s a mecca for hundreds of new bands and music fans alike. This year that remained the same: the chilly streets were buzzing with gig-goers, venues rammed to the rafters and a whole lot of booze. Rather poignantly however, this was the first event without Tony Wilson, and an uplifting atmosphere still permeated around the city.
Rather overwhelmingly there are over fifty listed venues this weekend. Rather sensibly the first port of call for many arriving in Manchester on Saturday morning was the fabulous Trof venue. The lure of local acoustic artists in a chilled out atmosphere prepared many for the carnage to come.
Onto an official ITC showcase, New Homes are looking decidedly sleuth and uncomfortable on stage, despite their deliriously young age and the youthful vigour one would instantly associate with their bursting sound. On record sparse post punk arrangements are accompanied by innocently out of tune vocals and raging choruses. From the simple verses, rich big choruses come shining through, and they possess a good card in shambolic charm. On record. On stage, this was sucked out of them, as vacant looks were being bandied across the stage and nervous stuttering replaced the vocals. New Homes looked bored, sounded bored, and made us bored with a batch of uninspiring and lacklustre songs.
On the other hand, Working For A Nuclear Free City were impossibly gorgeous and worthy of our attention. Lush synth arrangements, interrupted by moments of rhapsodic strings and fleeting beeps. Their set was idyllically refined and alluringly different from the other bands at ITC. The whole set was enchanting and ambitious, and not once did it teeter on becoming dull. Evidently, the Manchester four piece didn’t compromise on idea’s for neat time signatures, an opinion not shared with the people of Manchester as the turnout was relatively thin for this gig unfortunately.
The same cannot be said for Vampire Weekend, XL’s latest signings. Bodies quietly streaming into the Roadhouse to catch a glimpse of the New Yorkers’ decidedly quirky pop. And rightly so, a set drenched in rickety and impressive lo-fi melody, sweet lyrics, shuffling beats. Teasing the audience with a fine batch of songs that never quite burst into fully pompous, in your face moments, but instead peddle a jovial line in tender skiffle and intricate pop. Vampire Weekend sound very much like that band that lived in your head when you were thirteen years old.
Swatting away the cold Manchester evening, Elle s’appelle shimmy onto the stage at the Night & Day with an eccentrically British take on girl/boy fronted pop. Big, often sad and sentimental sounding songs, we’re witnessing a band that are unafraid of exercising ideas, and for that are teetering on pop greatness. Throughout their set, songs are unabashedly confident and hang around like the retro threads on display on stage tonight. Singer Lucy, bellows out over big, unashamedly melodic chords, whilst fearsomely assured song arrangements bounce and change as swiftly as Oasis remain stagnant.
After we’ve licked our lips and salivated at all the lusciously refined charming pop one could possible digest in a whole night without puking, it appears the whole of ITC has decamped to the Dry Bar to witness Twisted Wheel.
Twisted Wheel have brought with them the kind of atmosphere reserved for things that musically fall into the ‘special’ and ‘this is going to be very big’ category. On approaching the venue a chap runs out cusping a handful of sick. Or leaving the venue groups of zombified lads moan about loosing their shoes.
The atmosphere in the venue was immense, a seriously heavy breath stained in anticipation anchored down the crowd. Wall to wall the bodies were bent into corners, lined up in ranks on the dance floor and heaving into near riot territories.
What Twisted Wheel had not brought with them was an overwhelming collection of tracks. Steeped in snarling Oasis style vocals and sprightly shambolic punk, then smeared in a healthy veneer of urgency and fierce laddish idiosyncrasies. Gob smackingly unoriginal, but hush your mouth at the back if to suggest this all sounds slightly boring, as millions of boppers down the front thought otherwise. Tracks chanting about the police were back dropped to an amphetamine scuzzy post Libs racket, as the lead singer oozed the type of confident swagger that made their lack of songs melt into the floor, and the crowd po-go as if it was the last night on an earth destroyed by cultural barbarians.
The vibrant delivery of songs such as ‘She’s A Weapon’ and set closer ‘You Stole The Sun’, had the crowd squidged into their sweaty little hands, but take away the lager, laddism, and Saturday night on the piss mentality and all that remains is a band mimicking their hero’s, with a tidy collection of uninspiring rock n’roll under their Clark Wallabees.
There we have it, and there was even another two days! From the ghoulish (Ipso Facto, Hatcham Social), to the simply odd realms of pop – In The City 2007 will be remembered as a mix bag of sounds.
Written By : Sarah Bates
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