After a great night of music down in Ayr with James as the headline act it was an early start to make it to Liverpool for the Sound City Festival, railway works put a spanner in our plans so we had to do a bus and train combination finally arriving in time for The Kites set at 3.30pm at ECBGS, a basement venue that reminded us of The Caves in Edinburgh. It was full to the 200 or so capacity with little room for movement and it soon turned into a sweatbox but let’s focus on the music. The young up-and-coming Liverpool band played a half-hour set of indie rock that was much appreciated all round, we even got treated to a new track, but didn’t catch the name of it. The Kites are a band that are slowly becoming established in the city. 7/10
A quick dash along to the famous Jacaranda to see London based Chinese artist Aimei led to the first disappointment of the day as the venue was at full capacity. Next up was Better Joy at The Shipping Forecast, this was our first real find of the weekend, the vocalist Bria Keely Commanded the stage with authority, since they burst on to the scene in 2023 they have been slowly building a fanbase and released an EP recently – heading into blue – where most of the tracks played today were from. They played an unreleased song This Part Of Town that sounded great. The highlights of the set for us were Quiet Thing and the lyrically powerful What A Day, you can’t help but take note of the lines “Jenny ran off with an atheist, she got her name on the church hit list/Bobby had himself a heart attack, playing golf like a maniac”. We are expecting big things from Better Joy and hope for a UK tour in the near future. 9/10
The beauty of Sound City is that all the venues are close together and a one minute walk up to the main venue of the day Grand Central to see young Sunderland singer-songwriter Tom A.Smith was well worth it, the young crowd downstairs created the first mosh pits of the day and it basically stayed that was for every act that played the historic venue from there on in. There were at least three hundred in the venue when Tom invited an audience member to play guitar on play Never Good Enough, the young lad did a great job while the crowd sang back the chorus “I try so hard but it’s never good enough”. We have been following Tom A.Smith for a few years now and he just gets better every time we see him live. It’s always good to mention that he played Glastonbury at the age of eleven years old and was hand picked by the legend that is Elton John to tour with him, if that’s not reason enough to give his music a listen then what is? 8/10
Corella were announced as the afternoon Saturday headliners last week, they also played in this venue last year after the release of debut album Once Upon A Weekend, they are not long off a successful tour supporting Circa Waves around the UK, their music seems to have an extra edge to it since we last saw them here a year ago. The atmosphere downstairs was electric as the band worked through a forty-five minute set filled with all the well-known songs including Come Around, Bloom and Barcelona Girl, the latter song has Joel Smith in among the crowd for a mosh pit … not that they need any encouragement though! In Glasgow we used to have the rowdiest crowds but this is maybe changing to Liverpool now judging by the shenanigans in the Grand Central today. Corella recently announced a UK tour for September and Bring The Noise are hoping to catch one of the shows. 9/10
After a quick dash to check into the accommodation for the night it was back to the same venue and more mayhem as Birmingham quartet Overpass filled the venue with some great energy, the early sound problems were soon forgotten about as they ran through a track list including Right Time, 3AM and Be Good To Yourself. The fact that the recent UK tour was almost sold out say a lot about how Overpass have progressed in the past year or so, recent EP release Dependent has had rave reviews all around. 8/10.
Irish band Cliffords have come all the way from Cork to play at the Arts Club Loft, there were some delays and we arrived in time to see the last ten minutes of Monks, a local Liverpool band. Cliffords have been on our radar for some time now and it is good to finally get a chance to see them live, they were for us the best band of the opening day of Sound City. The haunting vocals from Iona Lynch were outstanding during the half-hour set that included Bittersweet, Feels Like A Man and finishing off with Sleeping With Ghosts, we also get to hear Dungarvan Bay that was only released on 25th April, so we may have been some of the first to hear that one live. We will be watching how Cliffords develop over the next year with interest, they really are one of those bands with great potential and if marketed properly they sky is the limit. We really do hope to see them on a headline tour at some point in 2025. 10/10
The delays at the Arts Club Loft meant that we had to scrap any plans to see Nieve Ella at Grand Central, instead we headed back to The Shipping Forecast to check out Delights, who are playing at Sound City for the third year running and we are so glad that we did … the small intimate venue saw a small group of fans create mayhem down the front as we sang every song back almost word for word. The Manchester band didn’t disappoint and last track 1989 was special, it felt like every one of the hundred or so in the room were chanting the lyrics at the top of their voices, we certainly were. Debut album If Heaven Looks A Little Like This was released in January from which we heard a few songs live for the first time, there is some extra banter between the crowd and bass player Ben Kirkland who they think resembles a certain Pablo Escobar and chant his name from time to time adding to the fun of the performance. We really enjoyed a couple of the older releases Tender and Sometimes, Lately in what was a really enjoyable set. 9/10
Hannah Weedall was closing off the Jacaranda for the night so we though we would pop in to check her set out and were glad we did, the half hour was filled with summer induced indie vibes, it turned out that everything was running behind at Grand Central anyway so had plenty of time to get up there for the last band of the night, The Royston Club. Hailing from The Wirral, Weedall showcased her talents alongside a full band and the best of the set were Helena, I’ve Got My Eye On You and latest release A Little More Love. 8/10
By the time we reached Grand Central just after 10.30pm Welsh indie rockers The Royston Club were still on song number one with everything being pushed back half an hour due to the earlier sound issues. We have been lucky enough to watch the progress of this band from seeing them at the Neighbourhood Festival In A Day in 2022 to a jam packed River Stage at TRNST Festival in 2023 that coincided with the release of their debut album Shaking Hips And Crashing Cars. With shows selling out almost anywhere that they now play in the UK they have a very bright future ahead of them and we can see why with Tom Faithfull on vocals and guitar belting out hit after hit tonight with his very unique style and stage presence wowing every single person in the packed Grand Central Hall. He is joined on stage by Ben Matthias (guitar), Dave Tute (bass) and Sam Jones (drums) in a venue that was refurbished in 2023 and the capacity increased to 3,500 people and it can’t be far off capacity tonight as the Wrexham rockers work through a fourteen track setlist filled with passion, the crowd response downstairs is jaw dropping, it looked like they were going for a record amount of mosh pits!
Opener The Patch Were Nothing Grows could have been a reference to my bald head as we sat down but my self-consciousness soon dispersed as the band settled into the set with Blisters, Glued To The Bed and the excellent Mrs Narcissistic that is by far the band’s biggest song to date with nearing eight millions streams on Spotify alone at the last check. Latest release Shivers did send a shiver down our spine while an unreleased song Joe is appreciated all round. Any thoughts of a cut back set due to the eleven o’clock curfew were soon put to bed with the guys playing on until 11.30pm, 52, Mariana and I’m A Liar ends a highly charged blistering set that proves how much this band are respected in Liverpool and hats off to the crowd downstairs, they were absolutely dynamite throughout the day. 10/10
Well day one of Sound City 2025 certainly didn’t disappoint! We can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings now.
Written by: Alan Brown
