On Saturday July 9 Manchester’s Blossoms, caught mid-rocket to the stars, headlined an intimate Sounds Of Summer show for NME, TOPMAN and Austin, Texas at Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen for a crowd of just 350 competition winners. Here’s how the hottest gig of the season played out…
Anticipation high, the crowds gathered early doors for the opening solo set from Austin’s acclaimed singer-songwriter Carson McHone.
Blossoms’ set previewed their hotly anticipated debut album, mingling radio favourites such as ‘Charlemagne’ and ‘Getaway’ with chunkier album tracks such as ‘Deep Grass’. Good to know they don’t put jam on their ‘Blow’, mind.
‘Across The Moor’ was slick and soulful, while the doom drums and portentous synth atmospherics of ‘Smoke’ suggested Kasabian with their serious funk on.
“This is ‘My Favourite Room’, it’s a sad one,” Ogden declared before launching into the album’s acoustic centre-piece, a tune that wends its way from Oasis’ ‘Half A World Away’ to Echo & The Bunnymen’s ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’ in three sublime minutes.
The band closed with a (thankfully jam-free) ‘Blow’, all psych rock squalls and Noel G choruses, and the elephantine ‘Deep Grass’, Ogden telling the crowd “it’s been a lovely Saturday evening”. And it had.
The ecstatic crowd hadn’t just won at life, they were also handed free goodie tote bags and photographed on their way in to appear on their own individual NME cover. Lifelong dedication blossoms…
