The best thing about the North of England, if you consider this a positive trait as I do, is its unending desire to chuckle sardonically as it makes you suffer. Like a fat, bespectacled pubescent oaf who finds himself presented with a magnifying glass, the opening to an ant’s nest and a sunny day, Liverpool Sound City kicked open its doors just as the heavens opened, not hesitating in getting all assembled completely piss-wet soaked.



Not that it mattered; there was a silent, unspoken energy around the place. Liverpool Sound City is an excuse for all venues with enough room and at least one working plug socket to host huge numbers of gigs over the course of four days. It’s a deceptively large event with hundreds of bands over scores of venues across the town, yet as all these gigs take place indoors, unlike the more famous but irksome Mathew Street Festival later this Summer, the event can go by fairly unnoticed unless you’re actually looking for it. Those with red wristbands and dangly press passes exchange Masonic glances and nods in the street while Joseph Q. Public continues on his default ‘business as usual’ setting, wandering between meetings thinking about golf clubs and package holidays, oblivious to the city-wide event stirring into life that very night.



So the Hard Day’s Night Hotel was the hub, fittingly situated at the mouth of Mathew Street - heart and soul of Merseybeat in the swinging free-love decades before sprawling 70’s and 80’s franchise retro bars grew like warts and gave drunken shelter to hired pink limousines full of fat hen night Geordies and coke-pushing Saturday night scallotrons. Yet Hard Day’s Night somehow manages to retain some, for want of a better word, ‘class’. Maybe it’s the top-hat that opens the door on your way in, greeting you with a civility that your battered Converse and patchy beard barely deserve, or it could be the prominent yet minimalist Beatle décor, which doesn’t feel the need to slap you over the head like a brandished fish but nestles snugly in the back of the brain like an impure thought about one of your mum’s mates.



Passes picked up, I decide to get a feel for the place. The bar is rife with journalists, all remarking through hairsprayed fringes how someone or other didn’t deserve an Ivor Novello award and how wossname from the Arctic Monkeys is quite affable once you get to know him, etc. This ego-pugilism by association with showbiz pals seemed oddly out of place as I count out five pence pieces on a black marble bar to pay for a pint of beer. We are simple and humble folk up here in the cheap seats and a four pound pint in Liverpool is considered in similar terms to a surprise all-ten-men double fisting. So, with a wooden spoon in my teeth, I bent over and thought of the Queen, not even tipping the barmaid which is quite a personal slight to Scouse bar staff. Especially pretty smiley ones with big, welcoming hooblie booblies.



The bands had started early so a soaking Academy-bound dash across town later Ted Chest, my companion, and I are waving our passes at bouncers and fashionista teenagers in the hope of catching The Hot Melts. The bands are playing in the smaller Academy 2 which comes as a welcome surprise as the buoyant crowd fills the room to perfect capacity, like water into a jug. You could smell the sweat from the bands t-shirts, if you’re into that sort of thing, and their energy pulses from the stage causing throngs of Churhill nodding heads, Ian Curtis-esque upper body spasms and everything in between.



One woman, who must have been in her late thirties, seems oddly dolled up for the occasion in an elegant, flowing royal blue dress. She did seem into the bands though, and only after watching her dance whilst staring at her own hands does it become slap-you-own-forehead apparent that she is completely off her tits with pupils bigger than her own head. Still, I suppose that’s one of the better ways to spend a Wednesday night, throwing manic shapes to The Hot Melt’s joyous power-chord geek rock.



Next up are White Denim, who were actually a bit of a revelation. Whilst not being a massive fan of masturbatory extended whig-outs I had to admit there was something undeniably captivating about the telepathic interplay between the three members. Only stopping between songs to quickly tune up or create an intricate vocal/guitar delay loop the energy is relentless and the sound much heavier than on the album, like Wolfmother with Chris Robinson on vocals for some weird reason. Definitely a live band to see if you get the chance, especially in such a small venue as standing ten feet from them gives me some idea of what it would be like to be hit in the face by a solar flare. The bass player does look remarkably like Penfold though, and while this could be misconstrued as an insult I present it merely as an undeniable fact.



I had no great desire to hang around to see Cage the Elephant (sorry to any fans) so another clammy dart across town to the Barfly was in order. I’ve wanted to see Hot Club De Paris for a while as, along with GoFaster>>>, they are the ‘buzz’ of Merseyside at the moment. Luckily Liverpool city centre is exactly the same size as a modest allotment so the Barfly is reached with precious time to spare, but it seems worryingly empty. I ask a scruffy but kind looking stranger where the toilets are and he chirrups “Follow me lad, I’ll show ye, I’m goin’ meself”. Normally alarm bells would be ringing at this point, but he was clearly burdened with the same affliction as the lady in the blue dress so his intentions were clearly wholesome. “Me backs killin’ me” he says amiably as he valiantly struggles to piss, “I was off me head on garys last night and went up to me usual spot at the top of the tree in Sefton Park and I fuckin’ fell out”. I empathise, as there’s no doubting that falling out of a tree smarts something chronic, before the sudden realisation hits me that I’m standing in a toilet with my dick in my hands speaking to a man who spends drug-fuelled nights alone in trees. I feel like I urgently need a cigarette, so I wish him well and excuse myself.



Assuming the weirdness is gone I lean against the wall outside, mind pleasantly adrift with thoughts of climbing trees, White Denim and, for some reason, raisins, until a fight at the gates throws all my attention into sharp focus. A heavy set, tattooed girl who either looks like Brody Dalle on a very bad day or Kelly Osbourne on a very good one resents having to pay to get in the venue like the rest of us schmos (well, not me), and has somehow managed to pry open the six-foot steel gate designed to keep the knuckle-dragging contingent out. Another girl, who turned out to be the organizer of the night, steps up to stop her, a scuffle breaks out and bouncers are scrambled to attend to an undulating cartoon cloud of kicking, punching, a lot of face-spitting and gratuitous use of the word ‘cunt’. Following several clinical kicks to the gentleman’s pouch one of the bouncers has had enough and floors Kelly Osbourne with a not entirely undeserved push. Her male friends react poorly to this to say the least, and round two begins to the whooping delight of all assembled smokers, all flinching and shadow-boxing as if serious money is reliant on the outcome of this bout. As the fracas dwindles and the bouncers chase a scrawny non-entity up the street my tree-dwelling chum materialises as if from nowhere and whispers in my ear “I would have jumped in then you know, but I’m on probation, like”. Non-smokers will never realise what they’re missing; the smoking area is where society comes to let its guard down and be itself.



Thankfully the theatre area in the Barfly has filled up nicely as I rejoin Ted Chest, and the band are just piping up. Despite having heard their stuff before, Hot Club De Paris aren’t quite what I was expecting and they are all the better for it. Instead of angular cheesy pop, like Bloc Party bathing in fondue with The Wombats’ dangling their balls in their faces, Hot Club De Paris turned out to be a whippet-giddy Futureheaddy three-piece, sounding fuller than their scant numbers would suggest whilst retaining the inimitably tight energy that really good three pieces enjoy. Their local following was out in force and banter was rife; all three members chatting with the crowd between songs. Not being a personal friend of theirs, I started wishing they’d stop the yapping and play some music but as this was a hometown gig the communal atmosphere was perfectly placed and these interludes were never less than entertaining, at one point causing beer froth to come out of my nose.



So as the lights came on and we are herded from the venue, with a severity that suggests our presence is in some way offensive, the first day of Sound City draws to a close. The gig goers of Liverpool retreat to the shadows and down the man-holes from whence they came to hibernate once more, all is quiet and still, and Joseph Q. Public is still completely unaware that anything actually happened. After the gig we drift to Heebie Jeebie’s, the default nightspot in Liverpool, to pontificate on the bands we’ve seen and we observe something strange moving in the centre of the outdoor dancefloor, drawing all attention towards it like the pull of a black hole. The woman in the blue dress appears flailing through the crowd, still going strong and showing no sign of slowing down before tomorrow’s sunrise, taking excitedly to anyone who she thinks will listen. We’re tired from booze, we can’t keep up with these people, so after a cautious look up in the rafters for a lurking, gurning Tarzan we finish our drinks and stagger out of the door.



A good first day.

Posted In Your 2009 Festival Guide, May 21 2009. Words - Luke