In The City: Day One

In The City kicked off yesterday with a slightly muted bang. Opening conference Musicians Union: Pay To Play. OK? Was a failure by was of a dearth in real discussion due to colourful anecdotes. However the panel did highlight the ongoing scepticism towards pay-to-play deals and the MU’s inability to convert its members towards this open market mentality.

After much delay, panel Blogging The USA commenced without moderator and Drowned in Sound founder Sean Adams. The panel including Hype machine senior, an ex industry junior and blogging novice, a long term American (ooh, exotic) blogger and lastly Pitchfork’s head honcho Ryan Schreiber. The panel maintained that blogging is still where the trend setters inhabit and the go to point for the industry searching for the sound of tomorrow. In the panel it was the outspoken self-promoting characteristics of the bloggers outweighed the modest heavyweights of established digital media.

As many had anticipated the musical highlight was Factory Floor who played at an astonishing volume. Perhaps due to the fact that the sound engineer was wigging out in the Ruby Lounge, (which supports an argument made by venue patron Jay Taylor at the Pay to Play conference - that he only employs sound guys who love the job) revellers were happy to subject themselves to such abuse in this instance.

Manchester group MAZES pulled a decent crowd earlier on at Night&Day. Part helped by their quality, in part by their quantity, there’s a real feeling this year that local bands play a significant role in the festival. However it’s not all roses for the local groups as label mates Brown Brogues struggled, entertaining an ever depreciating crowd until all that were left were a handful of festival organisers and half a dozen highly committed onlookers.

With any festival there’s always one act that make their way to the top of the bill, for ITC 2010 it’s No Age. The height of Bourgeoisie groups with their unique faux-threatening style (both sonic and visual) the group pull a throng of fans whose sole goal this year is to catch this celebrated duo. For this reason the band are on true form grinding out layered guitar drones and distortion refusing to stop playing under the hot stage lamps.

Undoubtedly there was other stuff happening but when you’re merely just one man, what can you do.

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