Islington Mill Salford reviews by real event-goers

islington mills

Good venue off the beaten track very friendly crowd wicked live percussion on the night!

Nat Baldwin at Islington Mill

New Hips continue to develop - the way their arrangements change when the music is so complex is mind-boggling. They're not old Foals, though, they need to invite us into the tent. It was nice to hear them with a sound engineer who knew what he was doing.

Songs for Walter's second song could have been built on. The others were the teenage bedroom songs of the last fifty years, competently played.

Nat Baldwin worried me at first - how to maintain the interest with such limited resources - but the sheer quality of his voice, and above all the liberty of his melodies worked beautifully with minimalist pluckings and bowings.

NYE Islington Mill

The only reason I wouldn't give the venue 10/10 is because I managed to trip up the step before the stairs to the upstairs room...apart from that, NASDAQ's Black Sabbath set was crazy-good, and the atmosphere was brilliant.

For some reason the main room didn't do a countdown but that didn't stop the night being a completely positive experience and a night to remember. The best end to 2011 I could have wished for, and the best start to 2012.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS ISLINGTON MILL

A top night everybody was realy friendly, organ freeman was great fun and my fav band may 68 made my night brilliant. i will always remember remember the 5th of november.

Osunlade

Good Night! Good Set! & Good Venue!

Osunlade

Awesome! Did not fail to disappoint. I felt like I was back in Croatia again. Please come back!

Osunlade

Greatest venue cool atmosphere and awesome Osunlade set couldn't have been better ; D

Sounds From The Other City

Top day out - will definitely return next year. Well done to the boys at Islington Mill.

austra

:)

Austra

Great gig. It was also my first time at the mill. I will definitely be going again very soon.

To the above review the all girl support band is called stealing sheep you can find them here www.facebook.com/pages/Stealing-Sheep/142678837521 ?sk=wall&filter=1
They were great as well. I'm very glad I gave them my capo for the last song.

Great atmosphere at the mill and obviously Austra were amazing.

Austra live

my first visit to "the mill" hopefully wont be my last !

Loved the brockley Thai soup !!!!

nice sized venue and with the low ceiling sound was pretty decent too.

Austra were great also enjoyed the support band.... anyone know what they were called ?

Austra -Islington Mill

Brilliant performance!

Second sitting Crazy p

1st time at the Mill. Arrived in day light, didnt look like the most welcoming of places.How wrong i was, very friendly atmosphere.Stayed at the Holiday Inn which is walking distance from venue just down the road in Liverpool st.
Now the gig, just BLOODY AWESOME!!.Crazy P,s peformance again was just outstanding.Even got to sing duet with Danielle. (Sunshine makes me feel better, sunshine makes me feel this way}.
You guys keep up the good work.
Will up load photos at weekend when have more time.
Cheers
Dave

Crazy P gig

F£!&in outstanding! Really cool underground night. I really hope it keeps going strong for a long time. Nice one

A Great night at Islington Mill

Like the old Warehouse parties. Great mix of people and chatted about gardening with David who cares for the courtyard. Danced to great music. Can I say it again great music!

Only problem a little hard to find but that made it a bit of an adventure.

Wotgodforgot & Lightning Bolt/Tweak Bird and others

What a cracking night! I think Lightning Bolt and tweak Bird have got the loudest drummers I've ever heard - I still have a ringing in my ears 18 hours later! Coming off the stage and into the crowd made it all that much better. Loved the crowd surfing although there's a devil in me that hopes someone will drop but it was that packed that it would have been impossible to happen.
Support bands were pretty good as well although I was a tadge disappointed that there was no S**t & Shine as I had seen mentioned somewhere.
Spotted a few local music celebs there last night as well.
Max

Wooden Shjips at Islington Mill Manchester (review)

Although Ive never seen Wooden Shjips live, for some reason I expect this four piece to look like Jerry Garcia & The Grateful Dead and Im not far wrong. Even though theres an abundance of beards and long hair they are not a group of ageing hippies despite conjuring up a feeling of times gone by with their retro psychedelic garage sound. In fact, the choice of local psychedelic jam band GNOD as support and the acid trip lighting effects sets the scene perfectly and has me pinching myself to remind me that this is Salford and not Haight-Ashbury in the 60s.

The night starts with Now Wave/Wotgodforgot DJs while the venue fills quite rapidly and the very excellent local band GNOD take to the stage. A rattle of bells, with distant echoing voices, screams and howls, guitar feed back with a throbbing bass followed by a penny whistle, soundtracks the dawning of some primordial day. As tribal drums pick up the beat and engages the audience some words are half spoken or sung but the rhyme or reason of it lost to me. The band fill a 30 minute slot with three tracks of mind blowing cosmic trance drone drenched in delay and reverb with an eastern religious feel. Go check them out on their myspace site which is www.myspace.com/gnodgnod where you find all the tracks they played tonight

Its time for Wooden Shjips to take the stage for their only gig north of London apart from their appearance at The Green Man festival quite a coup for the promoters. The Shjips have played ATP and one or two other UK festivals in more recent past but theyve never put together a proper UK/European tour which surely cant be far off now and they have been on my must see list for a while now and I know others feel the same way about them. For instance, I bought my ticket from Piccadilly Records and the guys behind the counter couldnt stop talking about them and they were at great pains to tell me they have been fans for quite a while.

The venue is now even fuller as people come in from the outside garden/smoking area and theres a bit of a crush near the stage. In some magazines/websites Wooden Shjips are often compared with The Doors and you can understand why but this is just an easy reference point because in reality they sound nothing like them. In fact Wooden Shjips have hit upon this easy primitive repetitive toe tapping bass riff driven retro-psych-drone that immediately has the audience moving to the beat. Distant guitars fed through delay and reverb, little flourishes on the organ and echo drenched vocals add to the cosmic spaced out feeling. The sound is so successful that the basic formula is not changed throught the performance and why should it be when so many people like it?
Its obvious from the start that quite a few people are aware of the bands output on Holy Mountain records because each recognisable song - Motorbike Shrinking Moon For So Long Clouds over Earthquake and Aquarian Time are greeted with cheers and whistles. The band end with We Ask You To Ride much to everyones delight and as the set draws to a close theres a definite feeling that this was good trip. No one leaves, and to the obvious delight of the band, shouts of more, more are getting louder and so they return for one last number to end a pretty near perfect night.

Before returning to San Francisco Wooden Shjips play the Green Man festival in Wales and judging by the crowds reaction tonight surely it wont be long before they return to the UK to headline a bigger tour. In the meantime there are three albums and two EPs available that well have to make do with. Keep track of future tour dates and releases on their myspace site www.myspace.com/woodenshjips.

Max Steinberger

Wooden Shjips @ Islington Mill

That was the best Wotgodforgot night ever!! Everyone enjoyed. The venue was full when Wooden Shjips went on stage and it was still full when they had finished their encore 75 minutes later.

Oneida + Teeth of the Sea @ Wotgodforgot - Islington Mill, Manchester 16/08/09

This was another great WotGodForgot night of live music where influential underground bands from around the globe come along and show us what they are made of.
OK, tonight's headline band Oneida are a little bit further up the league table from 'underground' than most of WotGodForgot's recent offerings but even after 10 studio albums the name Oneida isn't one that's on everyone lips. And that is a mystery to me. They do seem to be a band's band though and I know that curators of next months New York ATP - The Flaming Lips - made a determined effort to make sure Oneida were on the bill for that prestigious event.
Oneida offer up quite a strong performance of krautock with some drones played out on analogue keyboards and guitars all wrapped in a tight bundle with the volume control cranked up to max for good measure. They are a band that have re-invented themselves over the years and whilst they have a number of almost poppy album tracks to chose from their repertoire, tonight they have come to rock so all their numbers are taken from 'Preteen Weaponry' their latest album 'Rated O' and much, to the delight of the support bands, their 2002 album 'Each One Teach One' which had some of the crowd actually moshing.
From what I could see the "O" managed to please everyone. I've never seen them live before but on tonight's performance I'll make sure I don't miss them the next time they are around Manchester.

Excellent support from tour buddies Teeth Of The Sea and locals Plank and Blood Moon.