Music In The City was a resounding success again as thousands flocked to see a plethora of Southampton Bands headed by old favourites The Flying Alexanders and Accrington Stanley.

This years Music In The City was again a great showcase of Southampton musicians young & old and of different genres across a number of venues, 120 acts playing at 15 venues to be exact with the focus being the old medieval vaults which were opened up for a rare public outing.

Sadly due to commitments i i couldn't get along to late in the day, so the first act i caught was the Glitter Bugz in the Castle Vault, as you can guess from the name they are dedicated to the glam rock sounds of the early 1970's and dressed in glittery wigs they looked the part as they banged out faithful versions of all the classics, a band that would go down well wherever they played.

Next it was to the Weigh House in French Street, approaching it you could see that this was the hive of the whole activity, the street outside was thronged with musicians and fans alike with many "faces" from the Southampton scene of old, Brother Goose were playing and running late due to problems earlier in the day with the weather, it was hard to get in due to the packed crowd, but they sounded promising as the NME used to say back in the day.

The Flying Alexanders were up next with singer Jonny Sansom making his annual attempt to do what the Luftwaffe couldn't quite achieve and bring down the roof of the Medieval Vault , luckily for the people packed into it he could't quite manage to do it again, but he and his band of merry men had a good go and the The FA's certainly brought the house down metaphorically speaking with their high energy brand of music, if not Brit Rock definitely Bitt Park as the Fab Four from Southampton evoked the energy of another quartet fifty years ago in a similar type of venue.

But there was something different about the Alexanders this year, all the usual stuff was still there, the best guitarist this City has produced in Perry Flatt, the stage persona of Jonny, driven by the bass and drums that keep them on track, but now they seem to have a few new songs, dare I say it they have matured into the band they have always threatened to be, perhaps they won't thank me for saying that.

After the Flying Alexanders perhaps the only band who would dare to follow them, Accrington Stanley, they have often shared a bill and seemed to share an audience, however both bands are different in style and delivery, but not in quality.

If The FA's are about the Pistols,1977 with a bit of Mid 90's Lad Rock thrown in, the Accies are very much about a jangly indie sound honed when they ere the darlings of the John Peel show back in the early 90's, however that would be to pigeon hole them and you certainly cant do that, how many bands use a cello ?

Their set spanned two decades with the audience lapping it up just as much as the previous band, the difference though was that whilst The Flying Alexanders had to keep a raucous crowd in check, Dan O'Farrell only had to deal with with the Accrington Stanley Youth Firm at the front making sure that a gang of five year olds played the tambourine nicely among-st themselves and explaining just what a cello was to a child who could not have been more astonished if Rufus had taken out a Martian ray gun out of his case rather than the aforementioned Cello.

So that was Music In The City for another year and a great showcase of the number and variety of bands this city has, sadly not enough people get out to see them play, so why not buck that trend and look up a few of those bands mentioned here.

The only complaint I can make of MITC is that it should be held in the summer, a few reasons for this, firstly the weather, secondly lighter evenings would enable it to go on a bit later and thirdly the football season, Ok a bit of a personal view here but on another year you might have a Saints home game and a lot of those who go to this event might be elsewhere for the afternoon. Lastly why not do it twice a year !

However these are minor gripes and its a great day out and something that this City needs to do more often as well as make more use of the great venues we have in this City for this sort of thing.

Photo: Action Images

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