Festival Watch – May 2015
It’s May! May the force to stand up most of the day watching at least 11 bands and traversing an equivalent number of miles be with you. Yes, it’s time for all of the all-dayers
We looked ahead to Live at Leeds (2 May) last issue, selecting Joanna Gruesome, Dutch Uncles and LoneLady – but if you’ve got the energy to keep gunning on through the bank holiday weekend, you’ll want our top tips for Sounds from the Other City (3 May), won’t you?
The genius of the Salford festival, packing promoters – be they the sort more used to the Apollo and The Ritz, or upstairs at Fuel – into the bars, churches and spaces of Chapel Street, leaves a brilliant lack of uniformity, and a completely diverse bill that simply wouldn't have happened under any form of central booking plan. It also means it can be a bit of a minefield working out who to go and see, but we recommend you try to catch: Shit and Shine’s mangled mix of hip-hop-inspired beats, industrial abrasion and kraut repetition; a likely remarkable collaboration between Ex-Easter Island Head and the BBC Philharmonic Ensemble; the morph-suit wearing, double drum-kit beating Barberos; Finders Keepers’ beguiling Jane Weaver, and ex-Late of the Pier member Sam Dust, aka LA Priest. Oh, and hey – if you’re going, give the #SFTOCSkinny hashtag a follow on Twitter. We’re running a competition where, if you share your photos of the day with said hashtag, you could win a pretty amazing goody bag stuffed with tickets and records donated by the festival’s assembled promoters, from Now Wave to Hey! Manchester and Gizeh Records.
At the other end of the month, Dot to Dot takes over Manchester’s Northern Quarter on 22 May with a roster of bright young things. It’s very much a talent-spotting festival, always with a bubbly and enthusiastic atmosphere (probably because of all that young blood), so keep your ears peeled (ew, ow) for the next big thing. Our picks tend towards the loud, from the acid-tinged, 90s-inspired indie rock of Cymbals Eat Guitars to Leeds grunge-pop unit Menace Beach, with a dash of Tei Shi’s explorative Argentinian pop.
More than an all-dayer, Liverpool’s industry showcase and festival Sound City (22-24 May) offers an increasingly overwhelming array of talks and panels as part of its conference programme, as well as gigs – and also enjoys a new location this year, down on the docks like. Swans, Fucked Up, the Thurston Moore Band and – again – Cymbals Eat Guitars will be keeping our ears weeping (happily).
If there sounds to be a lot of, well, pavement involved in all of the above, why not lose your mind at The Lost Carnival? We’re promised that, over the weekend of 22-25 May, Burrs Country Park in Bury will be overrun with psychedelic happenings, Balkan-folk influenced music, and ‘a giant, walking Pan-Galactic Circus Beast,’ otherwise known as the Marie Celestial – which will be heading off to Glasto shortly after.
Live at Leeds, 2 May, £27.50, liveatleeds.com
Sounds from the Other City, Salford, 3 May, £20, soundsfromtheothercity.co.uk Dot to Dot, Manchester, 22 May, £25, dottodotfestival.co.uk Sound City, Liverpool Docklands, 22-24 May, three-day wristband (live music programme only) £65, liverpoolsoundcity.co.uk The Lost Carnival, Burrs Country Park, Bury, Manchester, 22-25 May, £10, thelostcarnival.org.uk