CELEBRATE HALTON MUSIC

On the 4th of September, at roughly 6:30 pm, I ushered myself out of my dad’s car, arriving at The Studio into a bout of pre-gig gardening in preparation for the arrival of the public. My main objectives were thus: listen, dance and litter-pick. As I moved inside to see bands crowding the stage with equipment, I began to scout the scene with my good friend Ez, looking out for faces we would later see under limelight – it just happened that he knew a good few of them, and as we had time to kill, we thought, what else is there to do but shoot the breeze?

Around 7 O’clock, Ike Thomas enters the building, and greets us with a grin. He bears an acoustic guitar across his back, and is one of the coolest, kindest people you’ll ever meet – Ez regales his music, so I know it must be good. Next to arrive is psych-pop duo Seagoth, struggling to transport an expansive pedalboard and bass to the stage - we spoke to them at length somewhere else in this issue; they’re brilliant, they’re touring, and they’re bloody lovely people! People are starting to pile in about now – we catch glimpses of Man & The Echo, at this point lugging a keyboard onstage, and I’m taken aback by just how professional they come across. With headliners A Certain Ratio waiting out of sight, anticipation is steadily building. First to take the stage is Ike, and he’s just as brilliant as Ez described him – in fact, he was better than I could’ve expected. Ez likened his song ‘The Haunted’ to “your heart getting home after a long day’s work and putting its feet up with a cup of tea”, and I think that’s a brilliant analogy for all of Ike’s music – he writes the songs you wish you could’ve once you’ve already failed to pen them. Seagoth were on next, and as the bass kicked in on “Internet Café”, I knew it was time that people started dancing.

There were four of us commanding the floor – Myself, Ez, Luke and Ike – a group who were, on the whole, usually uncomfortable with the whole dancing thing. But Seagoth write music that demands to be danced to, especially considering how brilliantly Georgina and Hannah both played. They were lovely about our crap dancing, and even ended up saddling alongside our ramshackle dance troupe as we swayed, out of breath and sweaty, to Man & The Echo, the next group to take the stage. Introducing themselves modestly as “your run of the mil 7/10 indie rock group”, they went on to prove this assertation extremely false, and blew all our expectations firmly out of the water. They commanded the stage and exercised some serious charisma while they were at it.

Last on was acclaimed Manchester post-punk behemoths A Certain Ratio. I’m ashamed to say I knew very little about their music going into the night, but they certainly won themselves a new admirer after the gig they played. Swapping out drummer for bassist mid song or doubling up with two bassists at a given time; a sea of guitar effects cascading across the room and brilliant vocal chemistry between every member of the group, A Certain Ratio left an incredible impact on me. So much so that I danced myself into a stupor, just when I thought I was too tired to continue. I left for home that night with a sore neck, ringing ears, and doused head to toe in sweat, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. After all, this is what Halton’s all about.