Isn't it weird that this is the first time in recent history that someone?s put on a medium sized festival with camping in the Manchester area? Finally someone is trying to fill the hole left by D-Percussion, the free city centre event where the music was great, but the venue crammed to discomfort. Friends of Mine boasts seven stages filled with local and national acts.

Despite the organisers going for somewhat obvious headliners for a Manchester festival in an attempt to lure local thirtysomethings, there was some more interesting fare hidden amongst the scheduling.

We managed to casually walk, saunter even, from stage to stage on Saturday and still catch sixteen bands*. It must be hard for stadium-rockers- until they're big enough to play stadiums all of their bombast just seems embarrassing. Carjack Mallone are confident, we?ll give them that but there's certainly no point in playing this sort of stuff meekly. It's silly though. Patterns offer an ethereal slightly punk-funky indie. Like (**) it didn't stay long in the memory, but was pleasant at the time.