In The City: Day Two

After many years at In The City, am I getting too old for all this? Sadly, the truth is: quite possibly, yes. At 3pm on Thursday afternoon, the thought of another night running through the Northern Quarter in the unseasonably freezing weather is not a happy prospect. I would like to say that forcing myself to knuckle down and just get on with it paid off; but the truth is that Day 2 of In The City was a bit of a shitter for me.

You see, Thursday is the biggie at ITC and, with so many bands jousting for my attention, there were difficult decisions to be made; unfortunately, I ended up making quite a few wrong ones…To start off, it was back to City Inn to see Steve Lamacq conduct his 6 Music Roundtable with Guy Garvey, John Robb, Peter Hook and a room full of opinionated ITC delegates dishing out the scores. Between reviewing the latest releases, Guy assures us all that the new Elbow album is nearly finished – he’s getting through the last minute nerves by “drinking heavily”, apparently -  while John Robb shows us all how to pull off some killer dance moves to Sleigh Bells (the band, not the novelty Christmas instrument).

The first act I see tonight turn out to be my new far and away favourite, as I squeeze myself into a very tiny room with a very huge amount of people to witness LA duo Kisses’ first ever UK gig. Their glossy, sun soaked indie pop, with just an edge of melancholy, is perfection and, as I discovered, most definitely worth getting your toes trodden on repeatedly for. I rub shoulders with Steve Lamacq and Lilly Allen (not literally, obviously – that would be weird and could have potentially gotten me arrested) at Fixers, whose Kings Of Leon meets Beach Boys vibe buoyed me up nicely.

And this is where things start to go wrong… You couldn’t fault the energy of Lissi Dancefloor Disaster as they tried to encourage their small crowd to get moving by literally jumping up and down through their ENTIRE SET, but their CSS-with-added-techno sound is somewhat lost in translation. Meanwhile, Frontiers have got the epic vibe down, but there’s a certain sparkle missing and Stricken City are decidedly underwhelming.

My evening picks up briefly when Oberhofer, oozing Brooklyn cool, get all Vampire Weekend on us, but at Sky Larkin, I find myself wishing I’d gone to see Crystal Fighters (one of my highlights from last year) rather than blindly following the hype. Les Cadets draw in a smaller audience than they deserve for their perky, pacy tunes– luckily, Oberhofer are there to fill out some of the empty space by throwing some impressive indie boy shapes with the new best friend they just met in the fish and chip shop. Can you feel the love?

And so to Mount Kimbie – along with everyone else currently in the Greater Manchester area, it seems. They’re running late – not convenient at this juncture at all – so I’m only able to stick around for five minutes of their pulsing, pumped out danceage.  So we turn up to see Egyptian Hip Hop, only to find that Ex-Lovers are only just wrapping up a slightly twee, singsongy set. Wait another half an hour in this sweat box until EHH come on? No thank you – this old girl needs her bed.

Molly Jones