We finally began to live up to our promise to get to more local gigs by taking ourselves to see Snowfight in the City Centre launch their new single, No Light Left. Again it was proof positive that we should be going to more of these sorts of gigs.

First up were The Answering Machine. They were two blokes, a girl and a drum machine and they play Strokes-inspired indie pop full of sincerity and great guitar hooks. They even let the girl sing occasionally. While they seemed slightly chaotic, mildly thrown by some problems with the drum machine and a little inexperienced, the potential really shone through their performance and it was impressive to note that at what is clearly a very early stage in their career they are already enjoyable to watch on stage. Given time, more gigs under their belt, practice songwriting and a decent producer they could really produce some gems.

Next up was The Maple State (no, not Mates of State) who reminded me at first of The Futureheads, but I think that’s mainly down to their use of harmonies. They delivered a set of spiky pop-rock tunes to the glee of the crowd and some dancing. It’s been a couple of weeks and I should have written down my thoughts sooner, but it’s been a busy few weeks. I can say I enjoyed watching them and I’ll be looking out for future gig listings.

Finally came Snowfight in the City Centre, who were somewhat the opposite of the angular, upbeat punch of the first two bands, leaning instead towards sweeping epics and touching, quiet anthems. The stage was a mess of musicians all pounding their instruments earnestly and all I could think is that this band were quite possibly the missing link between Elbow and Snow Patrol – not quite as accomplished as Elbow and occasionally veering into M.O.R. territory, but also edgier and more interesting, less polished than Snow Patrol.

All in all it was a successful evening and was proof once again that the Manchester music scene is more than thriving and I await the next round of gigs from all three of these up and coming bands.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 at 10:02 pm by JustHipper and is filed under Gig Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.