I was pretty surprised when Jay asked if I fancied this urban one-day festival with bands playing across 3 venues in Manchester City Centre: The Ritz, Gorilla and Yes. The Manchester Psych Festival has not really navigated onto my radar before and perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at Jay wanting to go as he's a pretty unpredictable guy.
We only saw 4 artists and I'm not sure if I would I have described any of them as being 'psych', though to be fair I'm not exactly sure what that is but I'll know it when I hear it. I enjoyed Goat Girl at Rockaway and they were even better tonight at the Ritz. A short skip over the road to Gorilla for Tess Parks who I'm probably most looking forward to as I love the album she did with Anton Newcombe called I Declare Nothing. Tess' voice reminds me of Wanda Jackson's, sort of sexy even though it sounds like she smokes 60 Benson & Hedges a day. The gig is as good as I hoped and she is pure sultry slow rock. So much great music is made by women which was possibly always the case but I chose not to listen but it's no coincidence that we saw nearly all females and we had an amazing night.
Tess Parks
Back again to the Ritz for Courtney Barnett who is probably the biggest act on at the festival and a big favourite in our household. She absolutely rocks the Ritz and is very full on rock with all the poses as well. Not what I expected to be honest, but perhaps she was showing that the girls can rock out if they want as well.
Courtney Barnett
Our toing and froing comes to and with a final visit to Gorilla for my local band Working Men's Club. I was determined to watch them after missing what was looking like a promising set at Blue Dot and Jay and I got ourselves into the upstairs part which is normally VIP (though obviously not tonight as we are here). I end up feeling a bit bad about pulling Ben out of the gig at Blue Dot to see Kraftwerk as they are incredible so I decide to make it up to him by buying tickets for the next gig they're playing in the area. It was more of a quality than a quantity night which is not going to help to meet my target but we both went home with smiles on our faces.
Working Men's Club
