Featured image and gallery: Lucy Elson-Whittaker

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It’s that time of year again: Manchester Psych Fest returns with one of its toughest line-ups yet, forcing festivalgoers to make some difficult choices about where to spend their day. With so much packed across the city, sacrifices are inevitable.

Racing across Manchester, we catch four standout sets spanning the festival’s many different moods: the glittering, dreamlike world of Night Tapes, the intimate spontaneity of Ty Segall’s secret set, Stereolab’s hypnotic grandeur, and the unrestrained chaos of Gans.

Night Tapes

British-Estonian dream-pop trio Night Tapes glide onto the stage at Manchester Academy, emerging through a haze of fog and back-lit in a soft glow. At the centre of it all, Iiris Vesik’s vocals drift through the room – airy yet rich, with a treacly quality that seems to stretch and linger over every note. Almost instantly, the venue feels transformed, as though the crowd has been transported somewhere entirely different.

The band’s songs flow seamlessly into one another, creating an uninterrupted dreamscape. Around the room, people close their eyes and sway to the music, dancing without inhibition as though nobody else is watching. For a while, Manchester Academy feels less like a venue and more like a world of its own.

Then the opening groove of ‘Drifting’ kicks in, its funky, pulsing bassline instantly shifting the mood. The crowd erupts into a sea of bobbing heads and moving bodies, while Vesik crouches at the front of the stage, reaching out towards the audience with a smile.

After spending much of the set floating somewhere between dream and reality, there’s suddenly a sense of connection between the band and the room. The same music that had moments earlier left people lost in their own worlds now has everyone moving together.

It’s this balance between the ethereal and the rhythmic that defines Night Tapes live. Their music can feel weightless one moment and deeply physical the next, pulling the audience between the two without losing its sense of atmosphere.

Ty Segall

Everyone has been trying to guess who will occupy the festival’s secret set slots, with plenty of names thrown into the mix. The wait is finally over, and Ty Segall is revealed as the first secret set of the day, taking over the beer garden at The Abbey.

At the beginning, it feels almost like a typical afternoon pub set: Segall with his guitar as people sit with pints in hand, casually taking in the music. But it doesn’t take long for the crowd to swell. More and more people squeeze into the beer garden, jostling for any decent view of what is quickly becoming one of the festival’s most unique sets. Before long, people are even spilling beyond the beer garden fence, peering through the railings for a glimpse of the action.

There’s something incredibly intimate about the whole performance. Between songs, as Segall tunes his guitar, someone in the crowd shouts, “Play the bangers!”, prompting an easy back-and-forth between artist and audience. At one point, he even asks the crowd what the best beer is “around here”, filling the silence with a moment of spontaneous banter before launching into the next song.

Without the rest of his band beside him, Segall finds inventive ways to fill the space, at one point hitting the microphone itself to create a makeshift drum beat before launching into wild, rhythmic riffs on his acoustic guitar. The crowd laughs and cheers, partly at the sheer spontaneity of it, but also at the ease with which he handles the stripped-back setting. Even reduced to just Segall and his guitar, the performance loses none of its intensity.

Stereolab

Pioneering avant-pop group Stereolab grace the O2 Apollo with a set so immersive that, at times, the venue itself seems to disappear. From the back of the room, the stage is dreamlike – lights cutting through the haze as the band’s hypnotic rhythms wash over the audience, drawing them further into their world.

Even Lætitia Sadier seems taken aback by the grandeur of the venue, remarking between songs, “It feels like we’re in a big boat, going somewhere, I hope.” Laughter ripples through the room, but there’s something fitting about the comparison. Stereolab’s music has always had a sense of movement to it, their motorik rhythms and layered textures carrying the audience forward without ever quite revealing where they’re headed.

Their sound fills every corner of the Apollo, with layers of guitar, synths and repetition building into something simultaneously intricate and hypnotic. At the centre of it all, Sadier’s vocals float effortlessly above the music. Seated onstage, she has a quietly commanding presence, occasionally breaking from the music between songs to introduce what comes next.

Before playing ‘Immortal Hands’, Sadier speaks about the song’s themes of freedom, clarifying that freedom should not mean giving people licence to cause harm. It’s a brief but striking intervention, adding another layer of thought to a performance that already feels as intellectually engaging as it is musically absorbing.

Back in the music, the audience seems completely surrendered to it. Songs bleed into one another, their repetitive rhythms becoming almost meditative as people sway, dance and simply let themselves be carried along. Stereolab don’t demand your attention; they gradually absorb it. By the end, the O2 Apollo feels less like a concert hall and more like the expansive vessel Sadier joked about earlier – everyone on board, heading somewhere together.

Gans

Well, the award for hottest venue of the festival officially goes to Gorilla – although perhaps that’s simply what happens when Gans are on the bill.

Despite being one of the final sets of the day, when tired legs and hours of trekking between venues might have started to take their toll, the small capacity room slowly but surely fills to the brim. By the time Gans take the stage, there isn’t an inch of space left. They waste no time in putting the room into overdrive, with people wrestling their way towards the front and a mosh pit erupting almost immediately, barely letting up from the first song to the last.

Their fast-paced electro-punk is infectious, spreading through the room with an intensity matched by the saxophonist, whose playing adds an unexpected edge to their already frenetic sound. But perhaps the biggest surprise is their drummer, Euan Woodman, doubling as lead vocalist. From behind the kit, Woodman’s piercing eye contact cuts straight through the crowd, demanding attention even while he’s barely moved from his seat.

That doesn’t last for long. At one point, he abandons the drums altogether, climbing out from behind the kit to writhe and twist across the stage, sweat pouring from him as he becomes completely immersed in the music. There’s something effortlessly cool about watching him lose himself in the performance before launching himself straight into the crowd.

By now, everyone in the room seems to be moving. The air grows thick with heat and moisture, fuelled as much by the relentless movement of the crowd as it is by Gans themselves. It’s sweaty, frenzied and completely exhilarating – exactly the kind of set that reminds you what small venues are capable of.

And the intensity refuses to let up, even in the final moments. A crowd-surfer is carried onto the stage, only to throw himself straight back into the crowd before doing it all over again – three times in total. By the end, he seems less like an audience member and more like another member of the band.

Gans’ pride in their hometown is impossible to miss. A Black Country flag is proudly draped across the stage, with another featuring on the backdrop, before the band turn to the crowd and shout, “We’re from Stourbridge!” The declaration earns an especially warm reaction. As someone from the area myself, there’s something particularly special about watching a band from such a familiar corner of the country command a stage like this. For Gans, Stourbridge isn’t just where they’re from – it’s something they wear proudly, right alongside the sweat, noise and chaos of their performance.