Sound City Festival, Liverpool Friday Night 28th April 2023
Sound City is normally a two day (Saturday and Sunday) festival, but this year they decided to add a ‘new music Friday’ which took it up to a full weekender of music. £75 is pretty decent for 3 days of music! Using the Gigseeker app I worked out pretty much what I was going to see and when, but knowing that sometimes things don’t always go to plan I was open to a few changes. After collecting my wristband I immediately headed down to The Jacaranda, a venue made famous by the fact that The Beatles used to play here regularly among others. Laurence-Ann kicked the night off for me, they are an all female band from the Quebec region of Canada. They sang most of their songs in either French or Spanish but this didn’t stop the crowd enjoying their set. The three band members were very energetic and brought a blend of dreampop and synthpop to the appreciative audience, the Jacaranda being packed out as they worked their way through songs from their two albums to date Premiere Apparition and Musivision. There was also time for a couple of new songs including their latest single Polymorphe. Highlight must have been when Laurence-Anne came out to the crowd to sing a song or two. Definitely a great start to the weekend.
Beren Olivia was next up, also at The Jacaranda. The singer from Hertfordshire is such a talented up and coming artist and played a seven song set, including biggest release Read My Mind, which has 4.5 millions streams on Spotify alone. The set began with Is This What You Like Now, another of her biggest streamed songs. The three piece band also played So Emotional, History, Early Hours, Tomorrow and Stranger On Fire, which the crowd enjoyed.
Right next door to The Jacaranda is The Shipping Forecast, where Declan Welsh and The Decadent West were playing. The Glasgow/East Kilbride band treated the crowd to an electrified 30 minute set, playing all their biggest songs including Absurd, Aw The Time, Mercy, No Fun, King of my Head and the new single I Don’t Know Why. Great atmosphere in the room for Declan’s music which can be described as post-punk rock.
Upstairs at The Metrocola was next for an acoustic set from Edinburgh based Calum Bowie. He looked like he was loving every minute of it with the crowd trying to encourage him along the way. Highlights were Dancing In The Sun, Listen To Your City and Are You Coming Around Anymore. The remainder of my night would be spent at the legendary Jimmy’s where Edinburgh band Retro Video Club were just taking to the stage. The indie rock band delighted the crowd with an eight song setlist including their latest single Dangerous. Jimmy’s was near capacity as they started the set with Psycho, Disaster and Youth before playing their most popular song to date Chemistry and ending with the crowd singing along to Boys Like Me.
Delights were the next act of the night. They had a few teething issues with sound equipment so there was a short delay, but when they did appear on stage the crowd were ‘delighted’! The electro-pop band are gaining quite a following which was proven by the fans singing back every song to them. The set included all the big hitters: Sometimes Lately, Tender, Telephone Baby and the excellent Iris. Due to time constraints the band had to finish up after the track 1989, meaning that they couldn’t play their new single Sweet Spot, still a blistering set though.
Swim Deep have been around since 2011 and have in that time produced four albums. The synth/indie pop band are from Birmingham and are Austin Williams (vocals), Robbie Wood (guitar), Cavan McCarthy (bass), James Balmont (keyboards) and Thomas Fiquet (drums). The band are just about to go out on a UK tour and the singer mentioned that this was their first time playing these songs for 5 years. So no pressure then! Again there were some issues with the equipment and the band didn’t appear on stage until almost 11pm. It was well worth the wait though as the band performed all their biggest hits including Honey, King City, She Changes The Weather and To Feel Good. Will be seeing Swim Deep at King Tut’s on 5th June as part of their UK tour.
The best act was saved to the last as Monks had the crowd dancing for 40 minutes during an epic set. Their blend of guitar and synth sound created a perfect end to the night, which ended at 12.30am! The raucious crowd appreciated every song and Jimm’y was jam packed to capacity. The band work through an eight song set leaving everyone anticipating how good the next two days of music would be.
Review & Photographs by Alan Brown
