An early morning nail appointment doesn’t stop Getintothis’ Stephanie Heneghan legging it round town in her six inch wedges. The perfect platform to watch Black Lips go off.
It’s Friday night, it’s payday and after making my final visit to the gym this week, I’m off to undo all that good work courtesy of Mr Smirnoff.
Or so I thought, until I realised that I had a very important (nail) appointment at 9am the next morning and so spending all my wages on vodka the night before was probably not the best alarm call for a Saturday morning. Being a girl is HARD WORK.
Diet Cokes is it then. At least I’m on familiar territory with my first port of call being the Shipping Forecast. I spend pretty much every weekend in here, I seriously don’t know where I went before the Ship opened? It’s only been here a year. Best year of my life… well what I can remember of it anyway.
Down in The Hold tonight is Picturebook, a trio who have built a great reputation on the local music scene with their infectious folky electro pop. Their sound would be better suited to a beachside bar in Ibiza watching the sunset but instead we’re in a dark basement in Liverpool. Thems the breaks.
They pulled off their normal party set, debuted their new single Satellites and generally were as entertaining as always.
Then I had a bit of time to kill before seeing Cults so popped into Leaf to catch The Dirty Rivers, a bunch of baby mods who take themselves very seriously. The lead singer had obviously been practising his Ian Brown impression in the bathroom mirror, do we really need another flashback to the past? Innovate, don’t imitate.
I scampered from there tout de suite and headed over to The Masque to see Cults who were warming up for the headline act, Black Lips.
Cults consist of a female on lead vocals, four lads on instruments and a lot of hair. More hair than you’d find on the floor of Voodou at the end of the day. Seemingly, not a hairbrush between them though.
Aesthetics aside, they were okay. Actually no, they were deadly boring. So much so that I lasted three (possibly four songs, I wasn’t sure where they ended or began) before deciding to cut my losses and go see the Young Knives in the Crypt. They were awesome and that venue is fabulous, kudos to the Cathedral for getting involved in Sound City.
Reluctantly I made my way back to the Masque (that’s the problem with using spaces like the Crypt for gigs, everything else looks grubby in comparison) for the final act of the night, Black Lips.
An act renowned for setting fire to their instruments, getting their kit off and other RAWK activities; I was intrigued by what awaited. The theatre was heaving and to quote the girl stood next to me “well, there’s a lot of people here so they must be good“.
Luckily I have a secret weapon, it’s in the footwear. If you’re stuck in a crowd of jostling indie kids and all you can see is the back of someone’s head, you need to invest in six inch wedges, it’s like your own VIP booth.
Thanks to this forward thinking I had a great view of the band, the ensuing mosh pit and I saw exactly who threw that shoe onto the stage.
And the band? They were RELENTLESS. Impressively so, it was an energetic forceful performance, hardcore and frenzied guitars throughout. No theatrical antics sadly but sometimes it’s just all about the music innit.
And thus ends day two of Sound City.
Tomorrow night this teetotal nonsense goes right out the window, it’s the closing party with Jamie XX and SBTRKT. Mines a very large Vodka and Tonic please
