Nice to see you to see you nice
Manchester’s Sonic Boom Six pull a good crowd at the 2nd stage and prove to be the perfect band for a sunny afternoon, giving their usual tight performance.
To call them ska punk is probably doing an injustice to the band as that would give the wrong impression, whilst there are certainly elements of that in their sound they have much more of an urban feel these days. They also seem to have put more emphasis on melody and harmonies and sound a lot more radio friendly and lightweight than I remember them being in the past.
Singer Laila does her job well interacting with the crowd throughout and successfully manages to get a good sing along going but their lightweight sound and pleasantries do lack a little edge. When the band get into it though they are excellent but those lighter sections just aren’t very engaging and ultimately they are a bit frustrating. They get the crowd jumping with songs like ‘While You Were Sleeping’ and old favourite ‘All In’.
Sonic Boom Six are a good band and the years of touring have made them into a tight unit and it’s a little unfair to criticise them for being too nice but you do feel that a harder edge would give them more impact. They do their thing well today however and nobody in the crowd is complaining so who are we to argue?