Liverpool Sound City 2008

United Kingdom | by Jamie Skey | 05 June 2008

Coinciding nicely with the city’s year as Capital of Culture, the event shows a lot of promise and could certainly become an annual draw on the festival circuit.

Day One

First port of call on the opening evening is festEvol at Carling Academy, boasting a line-up featuring Hadouken!, Crystal Castles and a whole host of similar nu-rave talent, one of the single strongest running orders of the event. Local lads Indica Ritual open proceedings with their brash brand of dance-rock. It kicks things off nicely to a handful of people who’ve refused the neon markers and retained their dignity despite a love for all things funky. Upstairs Soft Toy Emergency explode onstage and tear through a set of female fronted grooves. Boasting an arsenal of catchy anthems each track could be a potential single and their frantic Justice cover gets the crowd moving - certainly seem like a promising name for the future.

Downstairs the running times are already incorrect (an issue which will crop up several times throughout the event) so there’s only time to catch one nu-rave offering from The Death Set before running upstairs for Does It Offend You, Yeah?. DIOYY? sparked a hype frenzy when the early singles were released and their myspace friends doubled by the day. But with the debut album released earlier this year, they’ve never really come close to fulfilling their potential and live they’re incredibly hit and miss, with tonight proving to be one of their poorer showings. Tracks such as ‘Let’s Make Out’ and ‘We Are Rockstars’ may get the crowd moving, but the band need to decide what direction they truly want to take. Some songs are epic, boring instrumentals, others are Daft Punk inspired funk and their more successful offerings are short, sharp dance-pop stunners. It’s often advantageous to be eclectic, but when it makes you seem so directionless it’s time you got your act together.

After two hours of such similar music it’s over to Club NME at the Barfly for a change of pace. Due to yet another timing error Team Waterpolo start 25 minutes early, meaning we only get there in time to catch the last two songs but what we do see is impressive and the NME will surely be all over them this summer. A chance to see rising indie stars The Metros is scuppered by their cancellation, the second band of the event to pull out following XX Teens' non-appearance on the stage times at the Carling Academy. So it’s downstairs for Mystery Jets, who help a pattern emerge by taking to the stage 20 minutes later than scheduled. Drawing mainly from recent album ‘Twenty One’ they’ve clearly matured from their debut and still sound as full as always despite the loss of aging Henry before this touring cycle.

Their late appearance means we have to miss a chunk of their set to run upstairs and catch the NME’s newest love affair Glasvegas. They hail from Scotland and clearly don’t give a fuck, to the point where their 35 minute set contains about 25 minutes of music, while they spend the rest of the time ranting to the crowd and singing vocalist James Allen’s name repeatedly. The tracks they do force themselves to play, such as recent offering ‘Go Square Go’, combine melody with snarl to create a fearsome indie-pop beast. Heading over to Alma De Cuba for the aftershow party, there’s an endless wait for first act South Central to take the stage, before the power blows 30 seconds into their first song and the wait continues. Eventually they manage to stutter their way through an epic, instrumental opener but their cocksure, keytar addling frontman is too much to stomach and we leave the packed venue muttering about the terrible sound and even worse band. Retiring for the night after a day of some great music, but often shambolic organisation and poor sound quality, the general feeling is one of ‘better luck tomorrow’.

Day Two

Nasty weather on the second evening makes the massive walk between the Carling Academy and the rest of the venues seem much less appealing than yesterday, but we soldier on through the rain to begin our evening with Leeds’ Wild Beasts. The vocal stylings of singer Hayden are unusual and the sound as a whole is a unique mish-mash of influences. They transcend the weaknesses of their studio output onstage and get the night off to an impressive and interesting start in front of a sparse, wet crowd. Popular music press would have you believe that tonight is a homecoming show for next act Eugene McGuinness, but that’s a typical bending of facts. Hailing from London, McGuinness attended university in Liverpool and as a result got into the gigging circuit here. Regardless of his Merseyside affiliation, his reception tonight is lukewarm at best as he flies through an eight song set of folky indie-pop offerings. He’s shy and humble onstage, possessing a nervousness which can’t help but endear him to the audience. He may not be receiving the attention he deserves at the moment, but hopefully his forthcoming debut full length will resolve that issue.

Things never really reached commercial boiling point for Dev Haynes’ Lightspeed Champion project. The music magazines aligned themselves to his cause and he worked with some of contemporary folk music’s biggest names, but the mainstream touch paper burnt out long before detonation. Still, the room fills up quickly as he plays tonight and it’s clear to see why such success was expected, as well as deserved. Tracks such as opener ‘Galaxy Of The Lost’ are ready built for mass approval, despite lyrical acknowledgements such as “I’m sick in your mouth”.  Dev provides the stronger material from debut album ‘Falling Off The Lavender Bridge’ as well as previewing some newer songs, including one played live for the first time. Upon being told that he’s already 5 minutes over his allotted stage time he proceeds to play single ‘Midnight Surprise’, turning it into a 15 minute epic, complete with a Star Wars themed violin section. As the song crashes to a climax Dev stumbles from the stage after spending almost twice as long playing as he was supposed to. He may have thrown their stage times into disrepair but he’s also provided the best performance of the festival so far.

Dev’s disregard for timekeeping means that a jog through the rain is necessary to catch Vetiver headlining the Barfly as part of the End Of The Road party. Missing occasional collaborator Devendra Banhart from their ranks doesn’t detract anything from their performance and the new material showcased at the beginning of the set quickly segues into their familiar output. Their sedate brand of indie is thankfully shown the respect it deserves by a (mostly) silent crowd and while it may become slightly repetitive towards the end, there’s something hypnotic about the band. This year's End Of The Road Festival is looking better than ever and the free badges, posters and tote bags they disperse go down a treat. We opt to miss the end of Vetiver to get down to see 2008’s hottest female property Santogold at Alma De Cuba only to be told on the door that we can only come in if we pay a further £10 on top of the wristband price. Needless to say further expenditure in addition to an ‘all-encompassing’ payment is not high on our list of things to do and we’re left to walk home in the rain in the opposite direction of one of the most anticipated acts of the festival. Liverpool Sound City need to keep a closer eye on the venues not typically used for music in the future as they clearly took Santogold’s popularity as an opportunity to try and exploit people who’d already paid money to attend the show.