Beyond the Music 2024: The Report
Now in its second year, we dip our toes into two of the four days of Manchester’s ambitious Beyond the Music conference and showcase festival
“What is the future of music? We’re all here to discuss that.”
An honest and heartening discussion between Warner Music’s Tony Harlow and Michael Adex, founder of Manchester indie label NQ, perfectly opens Beyond the Music’s first full day of its conference programme, and it seems that Harlow believes that Adex is the future of the industry. But Adex is adamant that the key to the future of the industry's success is to “focus on building connection and community,” two things at the forefront of Beyond the Music, a conference and showcase festival set up as a cooperative, focused on putting Manchester at the epicentre of the UK’s music industry rather than – *coughs* – London.
It’s a topic also discussed at length the night before, during the opening keynote speech featuring Dotty (host of The Dotty Show on Apple Music 1) in conversation with Manchester rapper Aitch, who talks openly about his experiences “blowing up” as a Manchester rapper, with London coming to him and not the other way around. Aitch is a charismatic presence and proof that you can make it anywhere if the timing is right. Of course, it also helps to have the right people around you, the aforementioned Adex being one of those people.
These frank discussions, alongside others exploring the future of grassroots music scenes, economics and misogyny in music, colour in our time at the conference and music festival on 9 and 10 October, and what shines through the most is how serious Beyond the Music are about what they’re doing. They’re proud to be leading from Manchester, and they’re ambitious about what the festival could mean for the future of the whole industry, bells and whistles of the bombastic conference staging aside. “It’s like being at the wrestling,” one delegate remarks as we laugh, wide-eyed at the over the top smoke, lighting and booming entrance music that welcomes every single speaker to the centrally placed stage of Aviva Studios’ grand South Warehouse space, complete with a 360 seating plan.
While every conference speaker – from industry professionals to MPs – is welcomed on stage like a rockstar during the day, the same treatment isn’t afforded to the musicians who fill the upstairs, downstairs and back corners of the grassroots venues of Manchester’s Northern Quarter on Thursday night, and a scheduling clash between a post-conference drinks reception and the first two hours of music means the first few showcases we catch are rather sparsely attended, which begs the question: Are people really here for the future of music? Or for the industry connections that come out of an event like this? It's a fine line, we know.
Aitch in conversation with Dotty (Apple Music) at Beyond the Music. Photo by Ailish O'Leary Austin
We digress. After a speedy rice and three at Manchester institution This & That, we rush to The Whiskey Jar for our first band of the night, and the only band to flyer us at the conference – The Empty Page. Lead singer Kel Page’s fire emoji hair is matched by the fiery energy that emanates from the trio’s brand of anthemic rock as she fiercely fumes about misogyny and the state of the nation's mental health over scuzzy guitars and driving bass lines. At Soup, Lavelle channels late 90s and early 00s R’n’B in her music, with nods to artists like Brandy, Monica, Jennifer Lopez and Amerie. By the end of her set, the Sheffield artist has pushed the small but attentive crowd to one corner of the venue, joining us on the floor with her backing dancers for a highly coordinated run through of next single Higher, encouraging us at the end to preorder it before it comes out. “You can’t even get a packet of noodles for 59p,” she quips.
Two minutes around the corner, in the upstairs of Gulliver’s we enter to the familiar intro of Evilin from our own Zoe Graham. Fresh from playing shows at Waves Vienna and Reeperbahn, it’s no wonder Graham and her band are sounding like a well-oiled machine. They play through a handful of recent releases, as well as new cuts like Good Girl – “for all you good dogs”, Graham tells us, as she encourages audience participation and everyone happily howls along to the chorus – and Divine Feminine Energy.
It’s around about now we should throw in a disclaimer that we don’t see any artist’s entire set, such is the nature of this kind of festival. Tonight alone there are 55 acts playing across 11 venues, with the majority of stage times either on the hour or quarter past the hour, and most playing between a tight window of 6 to 11pm. It's overwhelming. A lot of those performing are early-career artists, and there's a lack of information about any of them on the festival's website or in the physical brochure – instead only a list of names, some we like the sound of, some we've previously heard of, some that were recommended to us that morning.
One such recommendation is experimental cellist Lili Holland-Fricke, and when we finally find attic venue Aatma, we catch her last couple of songs, accompanied on stage by local artist, Manon. It’s ethereal, thought-provoking and utterly beautiful. It’s a shame then that bands from a nearby venue can be heard rumbling through the floor, but the pair laugh it off as their final notes reverberate around the room.
Earlier in the day, Chiedu Oraka was announced as being shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year at next year’s Northern Music Awards, so of course that’s who we check out next. “We got some skankers in the building?” he asks the crowd as we arrive in the weirdly long and narrow space of Off the Square, before Oraka, aka “the Black Yorkshireman”, launches into a song backed by a track that samples Armand Van Helden’s 1998 banger You Don’t Know Me. Oraka is a ball of energy on stage, to the point that he has to remove his glasses for fear of them falling off, while the keys hanging off his belt provide accidental percussion during an impassioned performance of single Helly Hansen 6.
At Castle Hotel we catch the last song and a half from local pair Teleshopping, whose delicate and affecting dreampop is an utter delight, before a 10pm scheduling dilemma hits us, with options including the recommended West Side Cowboyy, buzzy rapper OneDa, noiseniks Ditz or post-punk poet poor effort.. We opt first for local rapper OneDa, fresh from releasing her debut album Formula OneDa, who starts later than scheduled. But joined by DJ Miss Stylie and rapper Superlative, OneDa is worth the wait, her flow and stage presence next level as she raps over musical references that include artists as varied as Fleetwood Mac and Usher.
We try to catch the end of poor effort. but fail miserably, so we rush to The Peer Hat's cosy basement and catch the last few songs from Ditz, and what a wild ten minutes it is, singer Cal Francis seeming to question why they even agreed to play. But the room is packed, the walls are dripping in sweat, the show is a riot; at one point Francis crowdsurfs to a can of beer dangling from the ceiling, unhooks it, takes a big swig and sings like the future of all life depends on it. It’s a proper moment of pure unabashed rock and roll that proves you don’t need big production to make your point. Maybe less is more?
Beyond the Music took place in Manchester, 9-12 October; we attended the festival on 9 & 10 October only