Manchester Venues 140 to 141

If you head out the back exit of Piccadilly station you drop initially to the metro level and then the escalator gravitates down again to Fairfield Street at ground level and the accompanying taxi rank. Just beyond the cabs is a lift that takes you up to Platform 12 and then onto the next level and into the waiting area outside Platform 13 and 14. For more unscrupulous punters it could be used as a ticket barrier avoidance route!

Piccadilly Station with the lift in the right of picture. Image Credit showmethejourney.com

There are a plethora of breweries near the station ensconced in back streets and railway sidings. If you walk down Baring Street, you reach the hidden oasis of Mayfield Park, the 6.5 acre environmental green space encompassing the River Medlock which is the city’s first green space for over 100 years. To illustrate the industrial heritage of the area, thirteen Victorian wells were discovered in the construction and three were identified as still functional thus were then utilised to provide 20 cubic metres of water each to maintain the vegetation.  

Heading back from the park you would find yourself at Mayfield Depot which contains Escape to Freight Island with all their food and drink stalls and is also the location for conferences and fashion shows alongside the immensely popular Warehouse Project dance events. When waiting for later trains home on the overhead vantage point of Platform 14 I have regularly borne witness to the most extraordinary queues of customers awaiting access.  

Mayfield Park. Image Credit placenorthwest.co.uk

There was previously a venue alongside the Depot called the Fairfield Social Club on the wonderfully named Temperance Street where I once had tickets for a gig but unfortunately, they upgraded the show to another venue, and I never managed to attend there prior to its subsequent closure. It does now appear they have reopened Fairfield but in a different location over in Ancoats, near the Blackjack brewery, and they hold regular comedy nights there.   

Back on Fairfield St, you find one of Manchester’s most distinctive institutions, namely Manchester Star and Garter, the name of the establishment derives from the insignia pertaining to the Order of the Garter. It was originally built in 1803 outside the train station which had several monikers, including London Road prior to the current Piccadilly name. The build of the rail link to Oxford Road station in 1849 necessitated a brick by brick 100-yard movement of the venue, with its subsequent reopening in 1877.

Its initial incarnation was as a hotel containing an in house brewery. In 1986, the closure of the adjacent Mayfield station caused a chain reaction of the hotel also ceasing trading, and the area morphed into a brief ‘Dirty Old Town’ period. The building gained Grade II listed status in 1988 and reopened in 1991 as a live music site with its current pub and upstairs club lay out and has thrived despite its unusual location. It currently has a large Ian Curtis mural on one of its side walls.

It was threatened with closure again in the last couple of decades with the potential Northern hub expansion of the railway station. Their future however was solidified in 2020 with a ten year lease being purchased under the auspices of Mayfield Partnership.

It has been used as a location for many TV series including Band of Gold, Cracker, Prime Suspect and most extensively the recent Russell T Davies scripted landmark drama ‘It’s A Sin’. The venue is renowned for indie nights, Smile running for 20 years from 1993 to 2013 and the famous Smiths night which has been running for an even longer period than that.

The Star and Garter. Image Credit NME

It has hosted many diverse groups including Anti-Nazi league meetings, the 30-strong WBA supporters club of Manchester, Vampire Society and a comic night called Anti-Hoot which included the semi-legendary Bolton poet Hovis Presley!  It has mainly a rock/metal roster and was once coined as the ‘Temple of Doom’. Bands that have played there including Half Man Half Biscuit, Discharge, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, Low and remarkably Status Quo in 1999.

For many years I intended to visit but without success, until finally a gig was located, and a sabbatical trip was arranged in March 2015. It does look a little like a haunted house from the outside, evoking comparisons to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer ‘Fear Itself’ episode, but that was instantly dispelled by the warm welcome in the downstairs bar!  We then sallied up to the 200 capacity venue room and the first act on stage was You Want Fox, a noisy female two-piece from Nottingham.

The headline act was the East Town Pirates who travelled in from Ipswich to air their stompy sea shanties and have been referenced as sounding like ‘Motorhead meets the Pogues’. I returned once more in 2022 to see a band called the Reverbs.

In December 2021, local legend Tim Burgess put on a record fair themed event which had a novel set taking place on a Sunday lunchtime at the Manchester Piccadilly Station Mezzanine. The first challenge was actually finding this location and it transpired to be in the aforementioned metro entry level. By the time we found the spot, we only caught the last three tracks of an acoustic set from Starsailor’s James Walsh, who had an appropriate fine busker’s voice which matched the setting!  

Glasgow Venue 10 – The Hydro

In my 25 years of Mogwai watching, I always thoroughly enjoy when I can catch them in their home city of Glasgow, the three times I have witnessed them at Barrowland have been particular special nights. Thus, in December 2017 another Avanti express was boarded for their latest Glasgow date and I was accompanied by the three Dewhurst boys, Uncle George and a rare appearance from the inimitable Ian McIver.  I had very recently relocated to Manchester and was in an initial marginal homesick phase, so the timing was opportune to have a communal gather incorporating obligatory noisy music.

Glasgow Hydro. Image Credit blogspot.com

Our initial port of call was booking into our rooms at the hotel where we encountered some shenanigans confirming our reservation but that was smoothed out eventually. In a public house directly opposite the digs, I reverted into my traditional ‘sherpa’ mode to glean information on the area around our venue that evening at Glasgow Hydro. There was an impressively helpful bar chap who provided lots of local gen on the Anderston area of town.

It was a fair trek on the next leg as we navigated a footbridge over the M8 motorway. Our destination of Anderston was the birthplace of Thomas Lipton, Sir Billy Connolly and Eddi Reader of Fairground Attraction fame.

There were a plethora of pubs, some of which were the busiest I have seen in years. It sparked recollections of the golden age of alehouses in the 1980’s/90’s when as a scrawny scamp I visited Wall Street and the Grey Horse (turned into Yates Wine House in 1988) on the old main drag of Church Street in Preston town centre on many Friday and Saturday nights out.

Yates Wine Lodge in Preston. Image Credit lep.co.uk

The venues were so busy back in the day you had to plan a loo visit by mapping the quickest optimum route, potentially after drinking Bluebols or the cheap but vile house wine in Yates which was called Volari. The slightly surreal tag line on their advertising at the time was ‘Volari, the wine where the fun begins (backwards)!

Back in 2017, in the second hostelry we visited I was astonished to see Mr ‘helpful bar chap’ who had finished his earlier shift and was now on his own night out, so I managed to purchase him a cold beverage.   

The Hydro has had several names, the latest reflecting the current sponsors as OVO Hydro. It is a large multi-purpose indoor venue with a futuristic design including outer pneumatic translucent cushions. It was built at a cost of £125m and the capacity is between 12306 and 14500 dependent on seating/standing ratios which makes it the fifth largest in the UK. It opened on schedule on 30th September 2013 despite having a roof fire three months earlier, the opening act was Rod Stewart.

It has hosted boxing, wrestling, UFC and Commonwealth games events alongside having the kudos of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year being staged there in 2014. During the Independence referendum period, it hosted Scotland’s largest ever televised debate and has also staged the MTV Europe Music Awards.  Elton John, Kylie Minogue, Nine Inch Nails and Nile Rodgers and Chic amongst others have played there.

After following Mogwai for 20 years and seeing them in some tiny venues back in the day it was gratifying to see them gaining the acclaim they had always deserved and performing to their largest ever audience. However, the corresponding downside to that in my view was that the place was cavernous and impersonal. The band were introduced by their long-time pal, Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat who was decked out in Santa Claus garb!

Mogwai on stage at the Hydro. Image Credit theskinny.co.uk

They as ever were in fine form with the set list commencing with ‘Hunted By a Freak’ and ending with ‘We’re No Here’.  The night curtailed with a reverse laborious trog back to the hotel where we were very glad to able to rest our heads after another Mogwai adventure!