On the last weekend of September, we were lucky enough to be invited to Float Along Festival, Sheffield’s newest music festival based in venues all around the city. An absolutely wonderful day out, which showcased not only some of the best new music in the country, but also some of Sheffield’s best venues, we have done a write-up of some of our favourite acts from the day!
We opened up proceedings with Sister Wives at Record Junkee. Our August pick for Sheffield Spotlight, Sister Wives are one of our favourite bands, and we were so excited to see them in Record Junkee. As they were the first act on for the whole festival, we expected a smaller crowd, but Record Junkee was full to the brim! Such an intimate venue being so busy created a fantastic atmosphere, and the band met the atmosphere with an absolutely wonderful performance. The haunting vocals and screeching guitars worked perfectly in a live setting, with lead singer Donna Lee sounding absolutely incredible. The whole performance was mesmerising. Greater Place especially was brilliant, sounding even better live, with the hypnotic element to the song really coming alive. Sister Wives’ combination of folk and post-punk really suits itself to a live setting.
After Sister Wives’ set finished we made our way to Sidney&Matilda to catch the end of the brilliant Steve Lamacq‘s talk, in the Factory room. The room itself looked fantastic- bare, concrete walls decorated with an abundance of plants and lights. Sadly, however, the talk was so busy we weren’t able to even get in the room!
After getting a few pints of Shindigger down us, we made out way downstairs to see a band none of us had heard before. Mandrake Handshake are a psych-rock group hailing from my home town of Oxford. The band are heavily inspired by Anton Newcombe’s The Brian Jonestown Massacre, with their name coming directly from one of his tracks. Their long, adventurous songs saw excellent band composition paired with experimental styles like their uses of both a flute and a saxophone. For a synth-heavy band, their songs retained the characteristic ‘bite’ of modern rock that gets a crowd energised and moving. For a band that we all saw on a whim, we were pleasantly surprised by Mandrake Handshake. Our two friends, who are big fans of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, saw the band as a worthy tribute to the act, with them successfully adding enough of their own spice to the mixture to make for a unique listening experience.
After Handshake Mandrake we made our way to The Leadmill to see Katy J. Pearson. A masterful performance, Pearson delivered one of the best sets of the whole day. Powerful, emotional and raw, Pearson’s voice was felt through the whole of the Leadmill. A nicer change of pace to the typically heavier and punkier stuff that was on the rest of the day, Pearson’s set was just simply incredible. The two highlights, for me, was her brilliant cover of Willow’s Song, and Float, which was probably the best singular song performance of the whole festival.
After Katy J. Pearson finished up, we went over to Network to see Los Bitchos. A wholly instrumental band who are heavily influenced by Colombian folk music, Los Bitchos are the sort of band you need to see live in order to fully appreciate them. And they were fantastic; the level of energy on display on stage was incredible, and you felt almost hypnotised by the intricate guitar riffs. The venue itself was great: Network (formally Plug) is decently sized and the acoustics were perfect. The performance was made all the better by the atmosphere, as the band had managed to draw a large crowd. Of all the bands playing, we were most excited to see Los Bitchos, and they did not disappoint at all.
Overall, Float Along was an absolute triumph. Great music, great venues and a great atmosphere, it really seems like Sheffield is the perfect city to host these venue-based festivals. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there, and we are extremely excited for whatever the festival does next.
