6 Music’s four-day festival is now firmly embedded in the Manchester music calendar and it shook the city with global premieres of brand new live shows, new music debuts, unique collaborations and surprise guests.
The whole point of the BBC festival is that there’s always an artist round the corner that you may not know much about but will become your new favourite band, for me Fat Dog took the biscuit with the best performance of the weekend.
Fat Dog sound somewhere between Nine Inch Nails and The Prodigy and had the whole audience of mainly over 40-somethings headbanging and dancing to a techno-punk crossover.
They got the only circle pit of the weekend going in the crowd, whilst two of the band gleefully banged out press-ups on stage. Jessica Winter joined the band for a version of Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction, which was described as “incredible” by DJ Jamz Supanova.
This year’s festival also featured headline performances at Victoria Warehouse from, Ezra Collective with a special bespoke performance that celebrated the importance of youth clubs across the country.
The Kinetika Bloco organisation, made up of kids from youth clubs, joined them for an afro-jazz mash-up which culminated in a joyful celebration of their rise to prominence and wins in the Mercury music prize and Brit awards.
Ahead of their show, the collective had spoken with 6 Music's Huw Stephens on the significance of Manchester. Femi Koleoso said: "What does it mean to me. It means to me, 2017, Deaf Institute, Band on the Wall, YES, Manchester Albert Hall, Manchester Apollo, now we get to take on the Warehouse Project. I almost forgot Gorilla.
"That’s what Manchester means to me. And you can see there’s no notes or anything, that’s just straight off memory because it’s such a powerful music city with such a deep understanding for the power of live music."
Friday headliners Mogwai set the controls for industrial deafness volume levels with a show that pinned the audience to the walls. They featured a unique collaboration with KNDS Fairey Acid Brass, which merely added to the hypnotic volume rather than adding anything encroaching on entertainment. If a colliery brass band sounding like Sonic Youth in a force-10 gale is your thing, then bring some earplugs to their next gig.
Popping down to the Band on the Wall for Steve Lamacq’s Indie Forever disco was a wonderful celebration to hear a non-stop wall of tunes that everyone knew and could dance to.
Leeds-based English Teacher, who supported on the Friday, were announced as winner of the Mercury Music Prize for their debut studio album This Could Be Texas in 2024. Despite being incredibly talented, they didn’t really get the crowd going until Richard Hawley was invited onstage to join them in a romp through Joy Division’s Transmission.
Kae Tempest rounded things off in the big venue with their global premiere of new material. Kae said: “It's so exciting to be back at 6 Music with new material.
"I'm in this moment of kind of trepidation, just before an album comes out. I feel so much excitement. I feel so proud of this record. It's so warm and bright…it feels like 6 Music is the perfect place for me to be sharing some of these songs for the first time."
Highlights from the 6 Music Festival are available on BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer, as well as BBC Music’s YouTube channel.
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