The Manchester Gig Guide: 15th-21st September 2008

I was gutted when Bon Iver pulled out of his support slot with Iron And Wine at the Ritz back in May to play Jools Holland. His For Emma, Forever Ago album is one of my favourites of the year so far and he finally makes it to Manchester on Monday night when he plays the Academy 2. Also on Monday the excellent Jeffrey Lewis plays the Club Academy with support from the much-touted Wave Pictures, while Californian indie popsters The Little Ones are at the Night & Day.

There are more goodies on Tuesday with Shearwater at The Roadhouse supported by local hopefuls Air Cav. Though I’ve quite enjoyed the last couple of Shearwater albums, for some reason their songs just don’t seem to stick and those albums are now gathering dust on the Indie Cred shelves. I’m hoping for some sort of epiphany at The Roadhouse. Canadians Born Ruffians play the Night & Day on the same night and I’m pretty sure that they’ll be very good.

On Wednesday folk goth pioneer – and daughter of Maddy Prior – Rose Kemp plays the Night & Day. The Glasvegas gig at the Academy 3 on the same night sold out long ago but don’t worry, they’ve since added a date at the Academy 2 on December 8th. Derry’s hotly-tipped indie rockers Fighting With Wire play the Roadhouse, also on Wednesday, in what is a 14+ show.

On Thursday My Brightest Diamond are on at the Sacred Trinity Church in Salford while on Saturday The Telescopes are on at the KroBar on Oxford Road. This is, apparently, the same band I remember from the halcyon days of Rocking In The UK/Transmission – the weekly hour of indie music TV broadcast on some, but not all, of the ITV regions at 3 in the morning that I, and presumably many other like-minded music lovers, set their videos for every Wednesday night (or was it Tuesday?) back in the late-80s/early-90s so they could watch cheap videos stuffed full of “psychedelic” visual effects by droning, noisy shoegazers like the aforementioned Telescopes, or watch said bands being interviewed by shy indie girls called Rachael; or a very young and nervous Steve Lamacq. I’ve recently been converting a lot of my old videos to DVD and watching old episodes of Transmission (certainly not to be confused with the shitty C4 show) and Snub TV has brought many a lump to my throat. Anyway, after all of that I can’t say I much enjoyed The Telescopes way back when. Sorry.

The week will be rounded off in style when ex-Go Between and songwriting genius Robert Forster plays the Royal Northern College of Music on Sunday on his first tour of this country since the tragic early death of Grant McLennan in 2006. It will, I’m sure, be emotional.

Video: The Go-Betweens: Here Comes A City

3 Responses to “The Manchester Gig Guide: 15th-21st September 2008”

Leave a Reply