Well this was one of the more unique events we’ve been to…thousands of Mancunians (and others) decamped to Malta for a weekend of guitar music and, in most cases including us, a lot of alcohol.
We weren’t sure what to expect when we got there considering its a completely new event, but it turned out to be a great few days away, with a really cool gig venue. Though it wasn’t a perfect event overall, the music was what we were all there for!
The hotel
We stayed in the official hotel in St Paul’s Bay, the BoraBora Ibiza Malta Resort, having bought the ticket and hotel package as soon as they went on sale.
The entire hotel was booked out for the event, and it was clear everyone was really up for it, from the airport to the plane and through to arrival at the hotel on the Wednesday morning, you could feel the festival-style atmosphere. This carried on around the town too, with most people we saw wearing the wristbands for the LG Weekender.
The hotel itself is pretty good, its clean, with a nice pool area, indie music playing most of the day (for this event anyway, I’d guess it’s dance music most of the time) and a couple of bars serving food and drink.
The main problem was that the drinks were VERY expensive, especially for what they were, coming in at around 8euro for a 275ml bottle of Heineken or 330ml bottle of Corona. When compared to the far cheaper prices pretty much anywhere else, this meant we didn’t stick around the hotel as much as we might have expected to. But this meant we saw more of the area, and spent much of Wednesday and Thursday exploring St Paul’s Bay and St Julian’s Bay.
The pre parties – Thursday and Friday
On the Thursday there was a Hacienca night at the Uno nightclub, and the Friday saw a pool party at the Cafe del Mar nearby. Neither of those really appealed to us as we’re not really into that sort of music, so we gave the Thursday night a miss completely, and went to the pool party for a couple of hours on the Friday.
I think they misjudged these pre-events a little bit. Hacienda made sense with the Manchester connection, but the pool party felt a bit forced and it didn’t really fit the feeling of the event for us. I’d usually associate beach clubs like that with the Ibiza party crowd, not indie music. By the time we got there later on, it was a bit of a flat atmosphere with some more Hacienda music on so it wasn’t really for us.
Personally, it would’ve been good to have an indie music alternative for that evening as I think we’d have enjoyed a sing along warm up for the weekend of that type of music. Either way, the beach club was in the main town so we could just leave and go elsewhere.
Saturday and Sunday – the music days
The location
So the venue was a reasonable distance away from St Paul’s Bay, which meant people had to use taxis to get to the event, which can be a bit of a scary experience in Malta!!
That said, there wasn’t really any other option considering how small the island is and where the hotels are compared to the event, and Bolt was brilliant, a driver turned up within minutes each time.
The main problem with the (unavoidable) need for taxis was that it was hard to get into the festival spirit when you were so far away, so it felt a bit disconnected from the idea of a day of music. This was especially the case for us when people had different levels of interest in the bands. I guess at a normal campsite you’d
The venue
I thought the venue as great. It was so small for a start, a properly intimate setting to see Liam Gallagher and bands like Blossoms in, as advertised.
These two pictures were taken from the back at opposite sides. As you can see, not that big and not too busy either.
There were loads of proper toilets in the blocks by the entrance, all undercover too. Loads of bars without many queues and some decent food options. The beer wasn’t cheap but was about UK festival prices, with Heineken on tap a big upgrade from Carlsberg at Reading for example!
I love watching music in the sun, and it was warm but not too hot and no rain, so perfect conditions really.
Crucially, the sound quality was top notch.It seemed well run and safe too, which is always a concern when you go abroad
Not so sure about having a separate VIP section though….I prefer to be amongst it instead of some exclusive area, so I’m glad we didn’t pay extra for that.
Saturday music
The Lathums
We didn’t make it in until The Lathums on the Saturday, getting into the arena a couple of songs into their set.
They’re not my favourites but their performance was really good, with Sad Face Baby and the new one No Direction sounding huge. I think I overplayed them during lockdown, so I’ll be giving them another go. It was a shame to not hear ‘Struggle’, but it was only a 45 minute set and they seemed to be favouring their heavier material.
Blossoms
This was the main event for the evening for me especially, they’re one of my favourite bands and I’ve seen them many many times over the past 10 years and I loved seeing them somewhere new, fully in the dark but still outdoors. The new album ‘Gary’ had been released the day before, though they mainly stuck to the singles from that alongside some classics.
It was a 1 hour 15 minute set, so a full headline slot and the sound, performance and light show were spot on. They played a lot from the first album which pleasantly surprised me, but that may have been down to them knowing it was more of a “casual” crowd, so they didn’t want to play too many they didn’t know.
All the new songs stood out live, with ‘Perfect Me’ especially sounding epic:
It was also the first time seeing ‘Gary’ and ‘What Can I Say After I’m Sorry’ live.
As good as the performance was, the atmosphere was really weird. It may be because we chose to stand down the side, but its fair to say many people didn’t seem to really know or care what was on the stage. There was loads of chatting and facing away from the stage, and even some football chanting. The crowd around us only really got into it for ‘There’s a Reason Why (I Never Returned Your Calls)’ and ‘Charlemagne’ at the end, which is a shame but entirely expected given the audience.
Sunday
The atmosphere was much better for the Sunday, with everyone seemingly a bit more into the music.
The Royston Club
The Royston Club were up first, and they’re a band I’ve only recently got into after catching them at Glastonbury in a tiny stage on the Thursday. This was the first chance to see them since, and they didn’t disappoint!
They’ve clearly got a cult following judging by how many have been watching them, with a lot more than I expected turning up early and singing along to every word. We made sure we stood near them and it was a great atmosphere!
New track ‘The Patch Where Nothing Grows’ sounds even bigger than the tracks off the album, and gives an idea of where they’re heading to. Classics ‘Mrs Narcissistic’, ‘Mariana’ and ‘52’ all got big singalongs.
Glastonbury impressed me, but I loved it even more hearing them with knowing the songs and will definitely be looking to see them again in the near future.
Jake Bugg
You sometimes forget how many big songs Jake Bugg has, but he managed to rattle through a decent amount of them in his 45 minute set! Opening with ‘Trouble Town’ (the Happy Valley theme tune), he reminded us exact how many hits he’s got with songs like ‘Slumville Sunrise’, ‘Seen it All’, ‘Two Fingers’, and more.
New song ‘Zombieland’ has been coming on after bands on my Spotify for weeks now and sounds great live, and ‘All I Need’ seems to have taken over from ‘Lightning Bolt’ as his biggest hit, getting an unexpectedly good singalong.
Jamie Webster
I’ve got to admit I’ve never really given this guy a chance, but the beauty of a one stage festival is you have to see stuff you wouldn’t normally bother with. I can’t say I’ll be listening to him a lot, but the reaction he gets from the crowd is really impressive, and I liked how down to earth and normal he seems on stage. Before he’d even played a note he said “Liam Gallagher, Liam Fray what a lineup!”, which is a refreshing way for a pretty big artist to be.
‘This Place’ is a great song and one I’ll listen to more!
Liam Fray
Then it was onto the two main events. I’m a huge Courteeners fan, and love seeing Liam Fray acoustic so I was in my element here.
It wasn’t just all St Jude songs here, though we got a fair few of those like ‘How Come’, ‘No You Didn’t No You Don’t’, ‘Acrylic’ and ‘Please Don’t’ along with ‘Smith’s Disco’.
We also got some proper Courteeners deep cuts, which is what I like about his solo shows. ‘Sunflower’, ‘Hanging Off Your Cloud’ and ‘The Rest of the World Has Gone Home’:
He also played ‘Pink Cactus Cafe’ from the new album, which is a good single and suits the acoustic part of the set. His voice is sounding really good, as it’s hard to hide when he’s on stage on his own.
He ended with the slowed down version of Not Nineteen Forever which is every bit as good as the original for me:
A proper warm up for the main man…
Liam Gallagher
This was the reason we were all there! And he didn’t disappoint in his last solo show before the Oasis reunion. It was the full Definitely Maybe set again, and the atmosphere was electric.
Everyone was talking about his voice at the boxing, but honestly he sounds at his very best this year. All three times we’ve seen him, at Co-Op, Reading and here, he’s sounded top notch.
I won’t tread over old ground here but this Definitely Maybe tour has been an absolute pleasure to see, we’ve got to see songs like ‘Fade Away’, again a highlight, that won’t be played in the reunion anyway, and this one in Malta and Reading have felt like celebrations of Oasis coming back.
‘Whatever’ and Liam’s version of ‘Half the World Away’ were again highlights, and ‘Slide Away’ remains one of the absolute best live songs for me. I think our loud singing scared off anyone in front of us, because we had a massive gap there the whole show!
The next time we see him will be on stage in Oasis again!!
Afterparty
After LG finished we poked our heads into UNO, the nightclub next door to the venue, for the afterparty. It turned out to be a mainly outdoor club which is pretty cool. They were playing some 90s dance when we were in there, but turned over to indie just as we left! It sounded like a great place to spend the night from reports I’ve seen but we all had flights and ferries the next day so had to bow out early.
Summing up the LG Weekender
I’m glad we went as it was such a unique thing, and we had a great time. Would we go back to Malta for an event like this? I’d say it’s pretty unlikely that they’ll create a lineup pretty much right out of my head again, so I doubt it. We definitely wouldn’t stay in the official hotel again even if that does happen.
It was a lot of money for only a handful of bands. Totally worth it of course, and it was nice to go away with a big group of us and get some sun, but you can probably get better value for money from doing a proper festival and holidays elsewhere. The need to get taxis all the time didn’t help, and having to stay so far away from the event (which is unavoidable in Malta) meant it didn’t really give us that festival feeling until the Sunday, so it all felt a little disjointed.
Having explored some more of Malta afterwards, I think we’d probably stay elsewhere than St Paul’s Bay, but there’s plenty to choose from!
All in all, we ended a packed festival season on a high!
