Neighbourhood, paradoxically one of the biggest small music festivals in the UK, made a welcome return to Manchester’s Oxford Road corridor this Saturday. It also served a welcome reminder of how strong the city’s musical talent remains.
Since the summer, the Manchester Evening News has been reviewing the best of the grassroots scene in town. with so many of those names appearing on Saturday, plus some soon-to-be new favourites, the festival provided a good encapsulation of where Mancunian music is at.
And, based on Neighbourhood, it’s in a really strong. The city remains a talent factory for musicians of all kinds. Venues are enjoying the post-pandemic world. Organisers are getting better and better at co-ordinating those kind of multi-venue festivals which can be a nightmare to visit.
READ MORE: Our picks for Manchester's best small gigs in October 2022
“Have you all had your weetabix?,” Pastel singer Jack Yates asked the Gorilla crowd to get the day going in earnest, but the opening of their set was hampered by some severe feedback issues - on occasion drowning out their playing.
However, when the band could be heard, they proved that the MEN’s summer review was no fluke. Punchy drums are complemented by a distinct Manc sound which is still popular - while the group are evidently inspired by Oasis, they are not an impersonation of them.
There’s real talent in the lads who opened for Liam Gallagher at Knebworth in June, and expect them to be higher up the bill for Neighbourhood 2023.
Further down Oxford Road saw Lucy Deakin play to Yes’ intimate basement in the mid-afternoon. Performing with her band, the singer-songwriter had some serious power behind her vocals - and bite in lyrics, especially for track ‘Care Less’. Combined with banging drums, driving guitars, and those aforementioned powerful vocals, Lucy’s show had the appeal and feel of the best high school garage gig you’ll have seen in the teen dramas we all binge watched over lockdown.
Following on from Lucy were The Flints , a set of twin brothers playing in their hometown. The duo specialise in ‘spaced-out disco’, fans were told, and this set confirmed that assessment.
The twins - Henry and George - have worked up some funk inspired magic. Baselines are crisp, something that Daft Punk would have considered sampling. The drums tie the synths and guitars together nicely, and - perhaps most surprisingly - both brothers seem to have an almost indistinguishably similar vocal range.
That range is very much like Jimmy Somerville’s, so the all-round package is upbeat, groove-worthy, and a rich sound. Not bad for a band that has ‘been together for about five minutes’, as one friend in the audience said.
Entering into the home straight of the evening, Soup! was on the menu. Playing to a very busy and quaint Zombie Shack, the quartet delivered a tight performance full of Mancunian character.
Jangly guitars perfectly matched the singer’s delivery, which had the detached and casual nature which you usually associate with Mark E Smith and The Fall.
Comparisons with The Fall are only natural, though. Lyrically, Soup! are very similar in its chanting-cum-spoken-word style, rhythmically they have that same let’s-rock-along pace, and the percussion is just as driven as anything you’ll find on The Frenz Experiment . That’s not to say they’re a poor outfit, but it does mean the group are facing a tall order, given the quality of the others who have follow the same path.
The first of the big hitters to play in the evening were Afflecks Palace. The last time the MEN reviewed the group, there was a plea for some more ambition in the show.
J and the band must have been reading with a keen interest - or for the purposes of this segue they were - because Afflecks Palace’s set at the Ritz amped everything up from July.
The vocals were anthemic, riffs were as tight and jangly, and there was an energy about the band that carried their sound further than previous shows.
Thoroughly uncomplicated but upbeat and endearing, it was a show that confirms this group belongs at festivals like this.
At around the same time Everything Everything were taking the stage at the Ritz, a far smaller number saw Venbee deliver her unique vocal styling in the Yes basement.
Almost amazing, certainly baffling, and incredibly unjust - only 19 people were present at the start of the drum and bass prodigy’s set. That’s especially mind boggling since Venbee has had a viral TikTok hit with ‘Low Down’, a song that has 18 million Spotify streams and one she says ‘changed my life’. Confusion aside, her talent to the lucky score inside the dingy basement was obvious.
Her vocals share some traits with Lorde - in her delicate nature - and Kae Tempest in delivery and intonation. Like both of those stars, she has a refreshing honesty in her lyrics, which makes her instantly likeable - as does her genuine appreciation of her fans who turned out.
As her set progressed, the numbers did swell, although not to the level her talent deserved. But for those there, they had an unexpected intimate show with one of the best young voices in UK drum and bass today.
Closing out the Yes programme was Egyptian Blue . The post punk outfit from Colchester possess riffs which are clean and sour, and lyrically they’re comparable to Soup! who played earlier in the day, but have an extra edge and energy in places.
That contributes to a feeling that the group are running on their own adrenaline - and that’s intoxicating to watch. Every move of every sinus of every finger seems do or die.
From one of the smallest arenas to one of the largest - the Ritz. Everything Everything were this year’s Neighbourhood headliners, and promised to be the crescendo to Saturday’s festivities and came out determined to ride that wave.
Chock full of heavy 808s that provided the steady heartbeat to their show and sparkly synths that lifted the Ritz’s energy, Everything Everything’s Persil-clean act - they even emerged in an all white uniform - wrapped their crowd around their very practised high notes. Ultimately, that proved a formulaic approach to the set, that bordered on shades of repetitive. The band were perhaps at their best when digging into their synth-heavier tracks, fit for bouncing around on a spring-loaded Ritz dance floor, as opposed to the more feathery light, plucked tunes.
It’s a show that appears to have been performed hundreds of times, with frontman Jonathan Higgs not putting a foot out of place during his careful, time-worn loops of the stage. But if the fans are saying don’t fix it, and in fact they’re joyously chanting the roof off, then they’re certainly not saying it’s broken.
And with that, Neighbourhood Festival is done for another year. As usual, it’s showed off the city’s best talent to a swathe of new audiences who might not have seen them.
That’s not to say there weren’t issues - attendance at Venbee will be a concern and feedback was an issue at most performances - but as a way of setting out your scene’s stall, Neighbourhood can’t be beaten.
To paraphrase one famous Manc lyric, God bless the bands.
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