In The City: Day Three

Enough of the tired moaning now. It’s the last night of In The City – let’s get this done!  For my last dose of industry musing, I watch Mike Pickering – he of Hacienda DJ/M People/Sony Music fame – discuss the history of Factory and the future of the industry as a whole with the legendary Paul Morley at the last of In The City 2010’s keynote talks.

Eagulls, first up on the band front, are clearly pissed off about something; what that is isn’t entirely clear, but they pour their fury off the tiny stage in a high energy set that turns out to be a bit directionless overall – they’ll most likely grow out of it.  Round the corner, local lads Driver Drive Faster are a last minute addition to the ITC line-up, but the question is: why weren’t they up there in the first place? There’s truly a little bit of magic in their moody, lounging tunes; hopefully, they’ll get a proper chance to shine next year.

Over at Popjustice’s night, Japayork shows Mika how he should be doing it, combining style and substance in a gig that’s pure pop. Coming from a totally different place are The Bewitched Hands, who channel the spirit of Arcade Fire and country it up a bit to create a truly unique sound. Slow Motion Shoes, who’ve got a seed of greatness buried there somewhere, are only on their second gig tonight, so we’ll let them off for not being perfectly polished. Then Blue On Blue provide us with a dose of shoegaze plus the welcome chance to enjoy some of Nexus Art Café’s yummy chocolate cake and a cup of tea (who needs a bar, eh?).

Most pleasant surprise of the evening goes to The Kill Van Kulls, whose set has Top 10 potential written all over it (and they bring out the first trumpet I’ve seen at ITC this year – always good). Over at a packed out Ruby Lounge, Glasser is delightfully odd in all her Kate Bush etherealness, nicely underscored by some techno beats, while the misguidedly named Yuck bring laid back, American tinged grunge and a drummer with a HUGE afro (as you may have guessed, at this late juncture in proceedings, when I’m struggling to keep my eyes open, any novelty distraction like this helps immensely).

To round things up, we check out last night’s favourite Kisses again – it’s always good to have a solid gold guarantee that your ITC will end on a high. And so what has been a particularly fantastic In The City draws to a close; this year’s conference has felt fresh and ground breaking in a way that it hasn’t for a while. My highlights were most definitely T3ETH!!!, Kisses, Yuck, D/R/U/G/S and Fixers, and I should just about have recovered by the time next October rolls around…

Molly Jones