Shack to open Liverpool Music Week with unplugged show

4th November 2006 marks the launch of the most ambitious Liverpool Music Week to date. Now in its fourth year, Liverpool Music Week has grown from a single venue project into a diverse new music event which plays host to 200 acts playing 39 shows across 16 of Liverpool’s music venues, with an anticipated crowd of 26,000 music lovers.

“The way we do it,” says Mike Deane, Managing Director of Liverpool Music Week, “is that we book the headliners that we really like, rather than who we think will bring people through the door. We don’t fill up our festival with ‘hype bands’. We very carefully programme our event, with who we think are damn good acts, and our crowd can expect nothing but high quality music. There may be some you have never heard of, but if you do your homework you’ll see many are specialists in their particular field... If you don’t do your homework, just turn up and you certainly won’t be disappointed.”

The majority of the festival is dominated by the local music scene, with many home-grown headliners, plus other cherry-picked national and international artists. The vast majority of events are free.

“It’s so good to have great Liverpool bands that are doing well to come back and play a homecoming as part of the festival, such as Hot Club De Paris and 747s,” enthuses Mike, “the atmosphere at those shows will be amazing. There is a huge diverse scene in Liverpool and with the solid basis of excellent acts – from Tramp Attack to 28 Costumes, we have been able to look at bigger bands to take the festival up a level. The most fulfilling for me this year has been booking legends, Shack, to do a unique intimate ‘unplugged’ show to open 2006. It’s the full band – just on the acouies [acoustic guitars]”.

There's an eclectic mix of established headliners including: Shack, Liam Frost & the Slowdown Family, Son of Dave, The Longcut, Bromheads Jacket and The Aliens (ex-Beta Band), as well as Radio One DJ Gilles Peterson presenting the 43 piece Heritage Orchestra at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall, and Seu Jorge & AfroReggae too.

Liverpool Music Week seems to be moving in the right direction to establishing itself as a national event, and may turn out to be one of the major success stories in the Capital of Culture year.

For the full details of each show at each venue, and for ticket information, see here.

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