Sound City returned to Liverpool for a fantastic weekend of music, including Loyle Carner, Mabel and Shame.
There really is no better place to host Liverpool’s most successful music festival than The Baltic Triangle, the creative melting pot that it is. The varied selection of venues and bars makes it a perfect match for the festival which boasts a stand-out, genre-spanning line up. It allowed you to see electronic dance acts in warehouse spaces, Britpop legends in beer gardens, and had the streets mixed with headliner acts playing on the main stage such as Mabel and Loyle Carner, and smaller acts lining the streets on pop-up stages. This year as always, included familar (Liverpool) faces – the likes of Clean Cut Kid, The Night Cafe and Spinn – alongside more up-and-coming Merseyside talent such as Monks, Samurai Kip and Shards.
To warm up for the main event, Friday saw Queen’s Avenue transformed for a great line-up of mainly guitar music: Silent K, Paris Youth Foundation, Ali Horn, Katy Alex, Jimmy & The Revolvers, SPQR, Monks and Harry Miller. This free event allowed those without tickets a taste of the action.
For those lucky enough to get to see the main event, however, highlights included Tea Street Band, who had the entire crowd in Constellations raving to their New Order-style mishmash of guitars and synth, and Australian duo Confidence Man over in District whose dance pop anthems ‘Don’t you know I’m in a Band’ and ‘Boyfriend’ went down a treat.
With Sound City back in its baltic home, the festival will surely continue to thrive and grow, bringing music lovers together for an assortment of musical delights. Let’s see what they can throw at us in 2020.
Photo: James Baker, Get Into This