The Deep Blue & St. Catherine's Child

Night and Day Café, Manchester –Manchester had been bathed in sunshine for most of the time, but as the first day of the Festival was drawing to a close and all the headliners were taking to the stages, the heavens were starting to open. Not by much, but it was a sign that would be fulfilled by the end of the night. Half a mile and ten minutes later and I’ve arrived back at Night and Day for my last band and one I’ve been looking forward to.

The Festival brochure suggests that ‘The Deep Blue masterfully fuse rebellious lyrics with hypnotic harmonies and finespun melodies, performing everything from deeply personal vignettes to anthemic calls to arms’. The ‘hypnotic harmonies’ part of that sentence would prove to be a massive understatement, if ever there was one. Before that though, we have a Support in the form of…

St Catherine’s Child - Ilana Zsigmond, if you know her personally, is one of the rising stars of the Indie Folk / Americana scene – these variations of ‘folk’ are coming at me thick and fast – and hales from New Haven in Connecticut, where she tells us that there’s nothing to see or do there, apparently. The joke, she tells us, is that the only thing you can do in Connecticut is to go to New York, where she had her heart broken as a teenager, but this inspired her to write the song 'Connecticut River' so at least some good came out of it all.

She’s also a very amenable lady, even though she introduced herself by telling us that "she’s going to hold us hostage for 45 minutes". She has a nine-song set and quite a dry humour, especially when she instructs us that we have to laugh at her jokes as she is “very funny” ! ! The crowd Night and Day would be the judge of that I fear, as it was getting quite full now, but Ilana was being very well received and is proving to be a good opener for The Deep Blue, tonight’s headliner, here. She tells us that she “can’t see anything because of the lights” but she “can hear us” and is pleased with the applause she’s getting - even though we’re not laughing loudly enough at her jokes. It's all good-natured banter though and Manchester has warmed to her nicely.

St. Catherine's Childs four-track EP 'Every Generation' is available now with two versions of each track included. Bargain !

St Catherine’s Child Set List

1. I Know Nothing

2. Burden

3. Connecticut River

4. Holy

5. Every Generation

6. I Understand

7. Leave A Light On

8. Negative Space

9. Not Ready Yet

The Deep Blue - Georgia, Niamh, Katie and Sophia burst onto the scene back in May 2021 with their debut EP, prompting the indie press to clamour for the inside scoop on Manchester’s hottest new band. By 2024, they’d celebrated countless sold-out shows, performed at Glastonbury and were honoured with the Cambridge Folk Festival’s Christian Raphael Prize. No mean achievement in such a short space of time.

Last year they had two UK tours under their belt, sold out nine headline shows (including London's Camden Assembly & Manchester's YES Pink Room) and received some hefty airtime on BBC Radio 6. Further performances at Y Not Festival, Tramlines and Truck Festival, where they won the Band App vote to play, came before they spent the winter on tour with the Lottery Winners. Apart from that, they’ve not been up to much ! !

It was a full house by the time that I got there, and the crowd had been suitably warmed up by St. Catherine’s Child (click here for a brief insight to that gig), the word going around the venue being that Manchester greatly approved of Ilana and would like to see her return with a full band at some point soon.

So, at the unusual hour of 21:15, The Deep Blue take their places to big applause. It would appear that they’ve brought their own crowd with them, which is not surprising as this is a home town gig for them.

They open with ‘Somebody’s Daughter’ which puts you in rather a reflective mood as it tells of the struggle and issues going on in the world at the moment with women rights, and then ‘Cynical’ which Niamh, in true Carly Simon style, wrote about someone that even the rest of the band don’t know of. Secrets, secrets, girls ! Musically, both songs set the tone for the whole gig. The luscious harmonies are out in force from the off and the hypnosis mentioned earlier begins immediately.

‘Cotton White Linen’ must be in the top ten of all subjects that you can write a song about. Georgia tells the tale of a chap she met during lockdown and them moving in together soon after, which came with two benefits. Firstly, he lives in Hale which apparently is much better than a house share in Longsight, and secondly, he has cotton sheets of exceptional quality. And so, the song was born !

‘Honeylove’, the title track of their EP saw the girls test out the harmonious capabilities of the crowd. Georgia split them into three and taught each of them their part before launching into the track and throwing in a great guitar solo in the middle, just for good measure. Manchester weren’t phased by any of this, as they knew what was expected of them and they delivered in splendid fashion.

Also in the top ten of unusual subjects that you can write a song about is Niamh’s entry, ‘Rosie’s in Love’ about a horse that wanted to be with another horse but couldn’t as they would kick each other, and so had to be separated, but at night she managed to get over the electric fence that was between them to be with her love, prompting Niamh to pen said song. You just can’t fault the creativity that some songwriters when they manage to express themselves when confronted with a subject and you have a vivid imagination !

‘Heal Over’ sees the front three harmonising throughout with just Georgia’s acoustic guitar behind them. I’m sure Sophie is in there also and she splits her time between skins and strings, but the back of the stage is so dimly lit, it’s hard to tell sometimes.

Sophie does come to the fore with ‘Chance’ which starts off with a chunky bassline from Niamh which pounds out before the Welsh element of the band shows off her craft and a little bit of her past as she used to be in a metal band called ‘The Beast with a Million Eyes’ apparently. How on earth you move from metal to folk is only a story that Sophie can explain, on another day perhaps ! There’s also has a bit of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’ delicately, but brilliantly, intermixed through all this and that chunky bassline is still pounding through together with some hefty drums which was just wonderful. Georgia confesses that they have to let Sophie express herself forcefully on occasions and this was one of them. I say they should let her loose once or twice more as it cranked everything up another level and was breath-taking.

Time for the encore’s and there’s no going off and coming back on as it’s a tricky thing to do at this place so better to get the audience primed and ready for another bit of participation with the lyric “and it’s always, always, he said she said”, which Manchester knew, but just in case there were newbies in the crowd, that didn’t. ‘How About It’ finished everything off and the good and kind people of the Night and Day Café just had the rain to negotiate their way through, but safe in the knowledge that they had just witnesses a fantastic evening of music with some of the most delicious three-part harmonies they will hear this year – whoever they go to see next.

The Deep Blue Set List