poppedmusic

Year’s End Festival

Manchester, 15 December 2018

Words: Gary Lambert

The penultimate Saturday before Christmas is meant for shopping isn’t it? Well, not if you’re in Manchester and a fan of good music as the folks at Scruff of the Neck and Distiller have decided to take one for the team and organise an event so smoking hot that you can roast chestnuts on it, the wonderful Year’s End Festival. In fact, this is such an enticement to avoid the shops that it could have been sponsored by Amazon. The only negative about this show is that there are so many good bands on that there are clashes. Clashes! In December! It’s like Christmas in July.

So who do we pick for our Must See bands I hear you ask, well…

Bloxx

We LOVE Bloxx so deeply you could dive in it from the highest diving board like Tom Daly playing air guitar. For a band at the start of their career it is terrifying how many great songs they have. With recent release ‘Sea Blue’ at the front of everybody’s mind and at the top of a number of playlists, the Uxbridge quartet show no signs of stopping. Oh, a word of warning, their live sets are incredible. Prepare for your life to change for the better upon seeing them.

Listen to Curtains by Bloxx below:

Vistas

If there was steroid abuse in songwriting, I would be expecting Vistas to be getting a knock on the door at six am every day of the week. There is something unfeasible about how they can whip up a tune that makes you feel on first listen that you’ve been singing along with them since you were a newborn. Make sure your expectations for these Edinburgh natives are set to “Joyful” and you won’t go wrong. And even if you don’t like happiness in your music, ‘Tigerblood’ will defeat you.

Listen to Tigerblood below:

The Ninth Wave

We recently caught The Ninth Wave at Off The Record and however I attempt to describe their performance does not truly reflect the magnitude of what faced us from the stage. Dirty glamour comes from the speakers with each note of their synth-driven rock. It is the kind of music which makes you feel like it’s a night for getting up to no good in the best possible taste. I’m getting excited just typing this.

Check out Swallow Me below:

So get yourself a ticket, and we will see you at Gorilla, then The Ritz, then back in Gorilla, and so forth until the end of the night. Just make sure you look both ways when crossing the road.