Blossoms

Blossoms rehearsed in a room above Tom Ogden’s granddad’s scaffolding yard in Stockport. That detail matters because it’s exactly the kind of mundane, non-glamorous start that makes a Manchester band story feel real. Ogden (vocals), Charlie Salt (bass), Josh Dewhurst (guitar), Joe Donovan (drums), and Myles Mayfield (keyboards) came together as teenagers and started playing local venues before anyone was paying attention.

Charlemagne was the single that broke them – a proper earworm with a synth hook that lodged in your head for days. The self-titled debut album in 2016 went to number one, which for a band from Stockport was genuinely remarkable. Cool Like You followed in 2018, then Foolish Loving Spaces in 2020 and Ribbon Around the Bomb in 2022. Each record expanded the sound – more synths, more ambition, the occasional nod to psychedelia – without losing the pop sensibility that made them accessible in the first place.

They’re Stockport through and through. The Edgeley Park connection is real – they played a homecoming gig at Stockport County’s ground. The Stockport Plaza, the old art deco cinema, has become associated with them. When the town started its regeneration push, Blossoms were part of the story people told about Stockport having something to offer.

Live, they’ve graduated from the Ritz and the Apollo to the AO Arena. The crowd is young, enthusiastic, and predominantly Mancunian. They’re not reinventing music – they know that and don’t pretend otherwise. What they do is write catchy songs and deliver them with genuine energy. Stockport doesn’t have a long list of famous musical exports. Blossoms changed that, and the town knows it.