W & I: Callum Crawford
Despite being 50% Mancunian by blood, I can count on one hand the amount of times I have ever visited the city. So arriving at Manchester Psychedelic Festival on a Saturday morning in late August I felt, at best wide eyed and at worst fairly daunted by the prospect of so many acts playing across so many venues.
DEADLETTER
A quick scan of the lineup of over 70 live acts immediately threw up far more than it was humanly possible to experience without some kind of suitably psychotropic manipulation of the space-time continuum. In lieu of such an intervention I made do with Google maps and a power bank and headed straight to see curtain raisers Gong open proceedings. If Stonehenge was short staffed this weekend it was because seemingly half of the employees were currently on stage summoning up their pagan overlords in front of a packed out and prog approving O2 Ritz. So far, so psychedelic.
W.H LUNG
For me though, this is where any hint of psychedelia would start and end today. To the point where the festival’s own merchandise is emblazoned with ‘THIS IS NOT PSYCH’ the name of this festival is something of a red herring and should not put anyone off attending that thinks psychedelic music isn’t really their thing (me).
After a fifteen minute or so dose of beardy prog and almost knocking a pint out of Marc Riley’s hand with my camera I scarpered. A longer than expected hike down to Academy 2 later I was in the photo pit for local wonder kids Westside Cowboy and their gorgeously intricate Americana tales of Mancunian youth. Followed immediately by another group of hometown heroines, PINS. Completely new to me but after 2 songs I was fully hooked in with their perfectly distilled combo of garage rock and 60’s girl group vocal’s.
PINS
WESTSIDE COWBOY
By early evening I had fully settled around the easily navigable core group of venues that included Gorilla, Ritz and YES. The latter of which, I was ready and waiting in nice and early for my first ‘must not miss’ act of the day, Sex Week. This New York duo’s armoury of seductive alt pop harks back to my late 00’s days of scouring Gorilla vs Bear mixtapes for the latest weirdo group of dropouts from New York or Baltimore. If Gang Gang Dance and Beach House were to start writing the scores for my anxiety dreams it would sound like Sex Week and I have listened to pretty much nothing else since their set.
SEX WEEK
A satisfyingly raucous set from Yaang surpassed my highest expectations of what a hometown set from these 3 boys would be like. The crowd being a mixture of fans and close friends made it feel more akin to a house party that you actually wanted to stay at. This atmosphere carried on perfectly through to Getdown Services closing out proceedings back at the Ritz. Showing exactly why they have been so many people’s festival highlight this summer, the adoring crowd lapped up their tales of 15 minute meals and James Bay’s hat.
YAANG
Not too long after an impromptu yet enthusiastically received singalong of Use Somebody by Kings of Leon I called it a night. As I bedded down for the night car camping on a desolate moor somewhere in the Peak District I searched in vain for a suitably pagan soundtrack from Gong to drift off too. Somewhat fortuitously the 5G deadzone left me with nothing but the still vivid echoes of an eye openingly glorious Manchester Psych Fest and the bleats of a few nocturnal sheep.
Early bird tickets for the 2026 instalment are currently £45 which is laughably good value
https://manchesterpsychfest.seetickets.com/event/manchester-psych-fest-2026/various-venues/ 3477318