Milestones Part 2 – Venues

This week I am returning to my milestone spin off articles and moving on to the venues category. I am currently a month away from the 43rd anniversary of my first gig and just recently I have moved past a total of 1700 gigs. Now I do wholly appreciate that to the layperson that is a significant number, but I know pals of mine who have done over twice that number of gigs, so all in all not an exceptional achievement.

However, without intending any braggadocious behaviour I have always thought that my gig ‘superpower’ is the number and breadth of venues that I have visited over the years and there is always a strong element of ‘FOMO’ in play as when a new venue appears on the block, I simply have to endeavour to attend it.

They have varied immensely in size ranging from the 40k in attendance at the Etihad stadium down to the twelve people that could fit in the beer storage area in the basement of the Kings Arms in Salford! They encompass standard venues, cafes, festivals, churches and even once a barbers in numerous towns and cities across the UK with many also visited in foreign climes.

Kings Arms. Image Credit camra.org.uk

So, let’s do the numbers bit as I know you love it! I have recently moved past 800 venues in total making the previously seemingly unattainable 1000 venues now a potential possibility. Unsurprisingly the largest proliferation has been in Manchester (currently 258 and counting) followed by my hometown of Preston with 67 and Nottingham with 48. The remaining 400 odd venues are scattered over a further 91 towns/cities including 163 venues visited in locations abroad.  This particular article will concentrate on the build up to hitting the landmark 500th one.  

In October 2023 a seven strong group of Gill and I, Marcus and Anita, Tris and Ross and his lad Dylan headed over for the Saturday of the annual Lancaster Live weekend. Prior to arrival I was sat on a grand total of 487 venues and fully aiming to hit the roman numeral D mark before we embarked on the train home. I remember Tris casting a little doubt on my ambitious intentions but with periodic single wanderings I knew I could potentially pick up enough cheeky hits to keep it in range.

Looking back to some earlier milestones my first venue was my one attendance to Lancaster University and the 50th was at a rather chilly Reading Festival in 1995 where on a grunge heavy bill I saw Neil Young, Pavement, Soundgarden, Ash, Babes in Toyland and a Tourette suffering White Zombie! My centenary was at Nottingham Malt and Cross and the 150th was Manchester Moho (latterly called Dive NQ) based in the Afflecks building on Oldham Street. My 200th was at Lancaster Yorkshire House and the 250th at Manchester COW clothes shop as part of the Dot to Dot festival in 2016.    

White Zombie. Image Credit pinterest.com

On the festival day we progressed from the train station but not without an obligatory visit to the rather fine Tite and Locke bar and their Lancaster brewery ale which is located on the platform. We split up before reconvening in the Royal Hotel (Venue 498), grabbing some tea in a Chinese restaurant next door and then progressing forward for the final push.   

Naturally Mogwai would have to make their obligatory appearance as my 300th venue was witnessing them at the cavernous Glasgow Hydro with the 400th being the Lending Room in Leeds. My 700th was the Church Inn down Canal Street in Manchester and the 600 and 800 ones will be covered in future blogs.

In relation to my most visited venues the top of the list is currently as follows: –

Preston Mad Ferret                      43

Manchester Academy 2             42

Manchester Ritz                           37

Manchester Academy 1             33

Manchester Night and Day        21

Manchester Albert Hall              21

Manchester International 1       20

Manchester Academy 3             19

Manchester Gorilla                     18

A couple of quick observations are that it is somewhat appropriate that the Ferret currently holds top spot as it remains a jewel in Preston’s crown. The other is that despite closing around 35 years ago Manchester International 1 (still my favourite ever) proudly holds a highly commendable seventh place on the list.  

Merchants 1688. Image Credit tripadvisor.com

So, returning to the story, I hear you ask (very quietly!) what was my landmark venue? Well, it turned out be Lancaster Merchants 1688 Restaurant & Bar, which in retrospect was a highly appropriate spot as it resulted in me returning to the city of my first venue. The Grade II listed building in the Castle quarter dates to the 17th century and was previously a merchant house before turning into the pub we know now in 1984.   

Melodrome Stage. Image Credit flickriver.com

Over the years it has been a regular haunt and quite often the first port of call due to its proximity to the railway station and I have also eaten there a couple of times. It is a proper old-fashioned bar with three tunnel spaces in which to imbibe a fine ale.  In the third cellar I saw The Manfredis playing who have no correlation whatsoever with the Sly Stallone character in the current Tulsa King TV series. They are in fact a long-standing local act and are also the house band for the unique Melodrome Mobile stage utilised at the festival.

Manchester Venues 228 to 229

Halfway down Deansgate opposite the John Rylands Library you will Manchester Box Deansgate. Back in 1986 on that particular spot on the corner of Brazennose Street there was an all glass building erected which housed amongst others many residents of the legal profession. That structure was subsequently demolished in 2017 and in 2020 a new building replaced it and became known as One Two Five Deansgate and they endeavoured to encapsulate Manchester’s industrial heritage with a terracotta style design.      

The Box. Image Credit www.tripadvisor.co.uk

The pub sits on the ground floor of the building, and its name derives images in my scattergun brain of the current Gary Lineker fronted The Box TV game show. Alternatively, it also sparks thoughts of Cube which was a cult 1997 Canadian sci-fi/horror movie with a high body count where a disparate group of people with different sets of skills needed to work together to try and navigate several devious challenges and escape the cube.

Thankfully though it is neither of those two scenarios and is in fact primarily a sports bar with thirty five TV screens dotted around and the obligatory unhealthy snacks are served whilst you are watching the match. There are outside tables at the front which I have resided in on sunny days, and they also have shuttle boards and dart boards on site. The business is run by Arc Inspirations who also own the Banyan Bar & Kitchen and Manahatta brands. The Manchester Box site was an extension of the three original branches in Leeds and Liverpool.    

Cube Promo. Image Credit collider.com

They stage live music every week from Thursday through to Sunday with the first night being classed as Bandeoke which consists of a karaoke but with a twist of a live band providing the musical background. On a Friday they concentrate of music with an Irish hue and on one of my visits I saw a chap called Drew Palmer performing. He is a locally based artist who has been on the circuit for around fifteen years and for a considerable spell was a resident artist at the famous Cavern Club in Liverpool. He is currently on a tour around Scotland with Kyle Falconer of the View including a date at the Dreadnought venue in ‘Bathgate No More’!

Continuing the Gaelic theme, I shall then take you further down Deansgate and a left turn into Oxford Road brings you to Manchester Katie O’Briens. The building at 23 Peter Street has an interesting lineage rolling back to its original incarnation as the Grand Theatre in 1883. It than had spells as a music hall, cinema and for several decades as the Fourth Church of Christ’s Scientists.

Around the turn of the 21st century it morphed into the Life Café cocktail bar and was at that stage positioned between Squares and Brannigans (latterly Albert Schloss). Intimate gigs took place here from the likes of Beautiful South, The (Beautiful!) Corrs, Stereophonics, Fun Lovin Criminals and Alanis Morrissette. They also had a venue downstairs called the Late Room and though I never had the opportunity to visit either, I do recall Uncle George telling me about a solo trip he undertook there to see British Sea Power in 2003.

Katie O’Briens. Image Credit www.msn.com

It then had periods as the Chicago Rock Café and the Sakana Pan Asian restaurant before in 2018 opening up an unauthorised Peaky Blinders 1920s style theme bar based on the fact that a proportion of the scenes for the TV series had been filmed in the city. Within there they also opened a dim sum restaurant linked with Ocean Treasure who have their original site within the Manchester 235 Casino located close by.     

I think I only visited the once before Peaky closed its doors for the final time earlier this year before it swiftly reopened under its current moniker and has been designed as a large traditional Irish bar room layout. On my one attendance thus far on 08/05/26 I saw a Salford based artist called Joe Knowles. He is also the resident guitarist in an enterprise called ‘I Like Singing’ who encourage and develop local choirs. Additionally, he is the driving force behind a four-piece dream pop band called Vala who have performed live on Radio 2 and have also worked with Gordon Raphael, who produced the seminal Strokes debut album ‘Is This It’.