Sound City Festival, 5-6 May 2018, Liverpool
Sound City 2018, Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th May.
Kick starting the UK's 2018 festival season into life, Sound City introduces the newer wave of of mould breaking, eclectic international sounds and styles including grime, electronica, psych, alternative rock sounds, pop, punk and much more. The world famous music city of Liverpool is having a BAND Holiday Weekend across Baltic Triangle and Cains Brewery. Early bird tickets have already sold out. Click here to grab a ticket while you can.
Going back to its roots for its eleventh year in a vibrant celebration of music and arts from around the world and closer to home with a wealth of shows across Liverpool’s renascent Baltic Triangle; a warren of intimate venues, bars and clubs which has evolved into one of the UK’s go-to cultural destinations. Sound City will embrace the spirit of the underground and seek out the next generation of talent whilst showcasing some of the very best bands and performers of their era. Over 250 of the hottest new bands and headliners will thrill with wild shows. There will be raucous record label parties and special guests on the festival’s pulsating international stages. For fullest line up info, maps and more; soundcity.uk.com
Saturday’s headliners include an abundance of sublime talent. With the spirit of Oasis running through their bones, From Radio 1 A list to sold out shows across four continents, as well as the world’s biggest music festivals (including Coachella, Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, Reading/Leeds). DMA’s have reinvented Britpop uniquely filtered through their Aussie origins. TheZineUK caught them at the launch of This Feeling TV last Spring. Liam Gallagher made sure not to miss their set.
Sound City 2018 is like a who's who of woohoo. Britain's foremost electro doom-pop band, The Slow Readers Club, (below, image by Paul W. Dixon) come loaded with insanely catchy tunes, addicted fans and have just won Best Breakthrough Act at Manchester's publicly voted City Life Awards. A people's band, which is evident when experienced live.
Childhood friends Picture This are regularly compared to Kodaline, The Coronas and Ed Sheeran, whilst arch social commentators. Idles chronicle the decline of the country and skewer the mainstream. Steve Lamacq is mad for them, and made their ferocious 2017 release, 'Brutalism', a BBC 6Music Album Of The Year. Baltimore duo Wye Oak bring distinctive indie rock and Brighton's Black Honey pulse with a sizzling psych-rock presence.
Over to the Sunday, and Sound City provides more scintillating talent to savour. Alt-psych rockers Peace have been compared to The Maccabees and Vampire Weekend, whilst surf-loving Sunset Sons channel the pop-Americana of Tom Petty, the rock heft of Kings of Leon and dreamy beach alt-rock.
Yellow Days’ inspired chronicling of youth and lust has garnered them great acclaim, whilst Baxter Dury weaves sparse but eclectically funny and touching lyrics through his music - his recent Prince of Tears album garnered glowing reviews. There’s energetic indie pop from Jaws, and Dermot Kennedy captures the tender streaks of love and heartbreak, bliss and sorrow and life and death in his esteemed music.
Further brilliant artists across the weekend include Jade Bird, Gaffa Tape Sandy, Sorry, Sam Fender, Billie Marten, Matt Maltese, Saint Phnx and Stereohoney. On the brand new urban and grime side of Sound City, the celebrated rapper and Manga author Shaodow was both the Hardest Working Artist Award Winner in the AIM Independent Music Awards 2017 and Music Artist Of The Year Award Winner in the AME Awards 2017. There’s also essential grime artist Vital touching down, Liverpool’s Lab TV present local rap duo Beyond Average and Juke, with more to be revealed soon.
Due to the underground rock scenes of 2016 and especially 2017 lighting the fuse for the guitar band renaissance storm that TheZineUK finds itself in the eye of, 2018 is the year to catch the highly tipped, as soon as possible. There are a wealth of Tips and Ones To Watch on this bill including global star potential, word of mouth rock phenomenoms, (trust) Asylums and The Blinders.
RPMs (image below by Rhona Murphy) came into our story with an engaging presence in Summer 2016 and it's been a ride watching them organically bloom. They start 2018 tipped by the people any band would want to notice them. We caught up with them to put into perspective what a key event Sound City is, by asking these purveyors of catchy as feck, energetic noise pop beats, what's going on with them right now, before they grace SXSW in March;
"We're fired up for what this year holds in store for us. Our new single 'Your Ghost' (Xtra Mile Recordings) has been getting great support on mainstream radio and we've recorded a couple more singles ready to go that we're really happy with. Our main hope is that we can convince more and more people to come on this journey with us, and that we take up residence on everyone's most loved playlists! We've also got some great festival appearances lined up including several showcases at SXSW, which is a bucket list moment for any band, and we can't wait to jump back into the fray, hit those stages and crack out some of our new tunes. See you down at the front."
They are joined by an all tipped line up (see poster below) on what is set to be an event of the year. Becky Ayres, Sound City’s COO, explains: “We really feel the spirit of discovery and exploration returning for our eleventh year, with a huge range of artists performing in some brilliant locations. We want to capture the magic of the UK’s thriving scene as well as what is happening around the world.” For 2018, Sound City really does go up to 11!
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