Friday 30 July 2021

TRACK OF THE DAY - Hates Talking - Keep Me Going (All Night)

Keep Me Going (All Night) is the debut single from Manchester four-piece Hates Talking. Fronted by Sam Carson, formerly of Lunar, the band have spent lockdown honing their sound for an assault on the Manchester scene and further afield and announce their presence with this earworm of a first public reveal.

Sunday 25 July 2021

Stephen Fretwell - Manchester Night And Day Cafe - 24th July 2021


To many people the Night And Day Cafe is a second home. For Stephen Fretwell. For us at Even The Stars. It's fitting that this is the place for his Manchester album launch for his first album in fourteen years, the top 40 Busy Guy, and for our first restriction-free show for sixteen months. Performing a sizeable chunk of Busy Guy and a few old favourites to a dedicated crowd of Mancunians and those who'd travelled from further afield, for forty-five minutes we lost ourselves in music.

Monday 19 July 2021

Granfalloon / James Holt / Clouds And Errors / Pageant Mum - Bolton Right To Roam Festival - 17th July 2021

Day two of Bolton's new Right To Roam festival saw an outdoor stage in the town centre as well as at the Octagon, Alma and Vaults. We caught the last two local bands outside - Pageant Mum and Clouds And Errors - before heading to the Octagon for local boy James Holt and Granfalloon revealing tracks from his forthcoming Positive Songs album.

Saturday 17 July 2021

Ist Ist / Gravediggers Union / Clouds And Errors - Bolton Right To Roam Festival - 16th July 2021

Right To Roam is a new two-day festival around a number of venues in Bolton town centre, part of an ambition plan of local music lovers and venues to inject some life into scene that gets dwarfed by the bright lights of Manchester down the road. We visited the main stage in the town's newly refurbished and impressive Octagon Theatre to catch Ist Ist, Gravediggers Union and locals Clouds And Errors.

Friday 16 July 2021

John Bramwell / HJM Bradshaw - Hebden Bridge Trades Club - 15th July 2021

John Bramwell concluded his Hebden Bridge Trades Club residency with the third sold-out night of the run of socially-distanced shows accompanied and supported by Harriet Bradshaw on cello. He delighted a rapt audience with a set of I Am Kloot classics stripped down and reinvented as well as tracks from his forthcoming Full Harmonic Band record The Light Fantastic.

Wednesday 14 July 2021

Julia Bardo - Manchester International Festival - 14th July 2021

A sunny Manchester mid-afternoon felt like a perfect introduction to Julia Bardo's forthcoming Bauhaus L'Appartamento album as she played a seven-song set of tracks taken from the album with her five-piece band on the main stage in Manchester International Festival's Cathedral Square hub.

Blanketman / The Lounge Society - Manchester International Festival - 12th July 2021

One of the highlights of the Manchester International Festival for us is the free series of live performances that take place across the city. Moved across from the Town Hall due to the ongoing works there, Cathedral Square is home to this year's hub and on a wet Monday night, Dave Haslam has curated two of the North West's most talked-about young bands in The Lounge Society and Blanketman.

Tuesday 13 July 2021

TRACK OF THE DAY : Odd Morris - The Once Was Enough

It’s easy to lose yourself in the songs of Dublin four piece Odd Morris. New track The Once Was Enough, a taster from their forthcoming EP Cityscape The Ballet due later this year, follows in the same vein. It’s dreamy and haunting with brooding sonic landscapes full of intent and sentiment that tug at the heartstrings.

Monday 12 July 2021

Mark Morriss / Nigel Clark / Chris Helme / Neeve Zahra - Altrincham The Bowdon Rooms - 8th July 2021

The Seahorses, Dodgy and The Bluetones were three of the more recognisable names in the mid 1990s Britpop explosion and these days their front men are out on the solo tour circuit, delivering a dose of old favourites whilst writing new materials. Having struck up friendships, this socially distanced show not only has all three of them performing on their own but one of their first ever live performances of their new MCH (Morriss, Clark, Helme) super-group in the picturesque Bowdon Rooms in Altrincham.

Friday 9 July 2021

TRACK OF THE DAY : Little Sparrow - Alone


Little Sparrow's new single Alone, taken from her forthcoming second album Feather Moon, continues the more dramatic path her music has taken since the release of her debut Wishing Tree - but with her unmistakable vocals very much taking centre stage.

Friday 2 July 2021

After All Festival - SKIES / The Elephant Trees / INEGO / The Last Clouds / Jay Page / Billy Morrissey / Leon The Pig Farmer - Manchester Tribeca - 1st July 2021

Whilst festivals are being cancelled around our ears, Manchester's After All Festival continued in a socially distanced format on Thursday night - a sold-out event at Manchester's Tribeca combining a range of different styles of music and urban poetry to an appreciative crowd that had been starved of live music for sixteen months.