A Week To Digest: In The City Round Up

So, all the reviews are in and our livers and ears have had a week to recover, now its time for us to bring you a rundown of our favourite bands at 2006’s In The City. This year’s event in truth was a bit of a hit and miss affair with the sheer volume of bands meaning there was bound to be vast differences in quality. Thankfully Gigwise managed to sort the wheat from the chaff over the four days to catch some rather promising showcases including many of those that we tipped before the weekend kicked off.

Here we go…

Winterkids

One of Gigwise’s pre-event tips didn’t disappoint. While their In The City set may not have been the finished article and was certainly hampered by sound problems the Surrey quintet gave us glimpses of something that could be really special. Latest single ‘Tape It’ is a sure fire live hit, all chiming keys, Smiths like melodies and breathless singalong vocals. All they need now is a sets worth of songs of similar quality (They have several already) and they’ll be making quite a name for themselves in the next twelve months.

The Answering Machine

If the crowd for the two shows from Manchester’s own Answering Machine is anything to go by this band are going to absolutely huge. At one point Gigwise was forced to watch the first set through the venues window due to the sardine packed audience inside. Sonically the three piece couldn’t be more indier if they tried according to our man on the scene for the second show. They’ve got the songs in the locker, listen to Oh Christina’, ‘Oklahoma’  and ‘The Hold Up’ to confirm this, and the momentum behind them. Watch this space…

Blondelle

We caught these young whipper snappers completely by accident while waiting to see goFaster and boy are we glad we did. They look about 14, sing songs about teenage love and make a racket akin to the Libertines having a scrap with a better version of themselves. Many may yawn at the thought of that rehash but Blondelle has that something and a ton of youthful exuberance that helps them get away with it. Noted was the presence of several A&R men sniffing around their coat tails and many will have labelled the track ‘Wonder’ as a potential first single.