Month: February 2021

Gigs Abroad – Part 1

I have been very fortunate to visit many foreign climes and witnessed many bands abroad but many of them have been of the on the hoof low quality holiday threshold. In that regard, my first gig abroad was at Majorca Santa Ponsa Square in 1997. In a rather quaint environment of a bandstand in the centre of a tourist square we saw a rather inferior Beatles tribute, but as with many of these gigs the compensation was the glorious sun and a beer in an ice-cold frosted tankard!

However, the second gig is in stark contrast to the first and at a completely different level. In September 1998, I married my ever supportive long-standing girlfriend Gill and we headed off for a few days to Dublin for our honeymoon.

It was a place we had always yearned to visit, and we thoroughly enjoyed our sojourn and we caught the city at a good time as we were in advance of it becoming a stag do destination and subsequent stratospheric prices. It is a very walkable destination and we embraced that approach dually soaking up the culture and visiting many hostelries and rather proudly we did not visit the same venue twice. We also found some fine restaurants dotted around the metropolis.

We headed out on the Dart (the local train) to visit interesting areas on the outskirts either side of the city, passing Ireland’s rugby mecca Lansdowne Road and walking on the pristine sands of Killiney Beach. I really found an affinity with this vibrant cosmopolitan city.

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The Dublin Dart. Image Credit TripSavvy

When I had booked the vacation, I thought it would be worthwhile identifying if there were any likely looking gigs that week and identified one at the Dublin Mean Fiddler. Fortuitously the venue was near the hotel and I recall in a pub next door to the venue on Wexford Road they were having a tribute night to Gene Clark, the founding member of the Byrds, who penned timeless tunes such as ‘Eight Miles High’ and ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’.

I had previously visited the sister venue Harlesden Mean Fiddler in 1987 watching the troubadour Townes Van Zandt. The Dublin branch opened in 1995, subsequently closing in 1999 to reboot itself as a new venue called the Village which is still going strong.

It was a small cosy venue with a downstairs bar and an upstairs venue. We arrived quite early allowing us to grab a seat at a table on a gantry overlooking the stage. At that point, it was the first gig I had observed purely in a seated position. The venue capacity is 550 and it was probably about half full that night. The support band was the Nottingham band Six by Seven who were touring on the back of their debut album ‘The Things We Make’, they created a fine racket with the standout track being ‘Something Wild’ and I would badge their performance in the ‘earnest’ category!

The headline act was the underrated Delgado’s from Motherwell who were uniquely named after Tour de France winner Pedro Delgado. They set up their own record label Chemical Underground which initially signed up a very young Mogwai and Arab Strap. They were fronted by the enigmatic Emma Pollard and they cut an engaging entertaining presence.

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The Delgado’s. Image Credit ohmyrockness.com

After the gig, we headed out to the downstairs late bar and gained entry despite my comedy fall at the bottom of the steps due in part to imbibing several bottles of Becks!      

Manchester Venues 27 to 30

Not to be outflanked by their Manchester counterparts the good folk of Salford set up their own festival in 2010 and uniquely called it Sounds from the Other City (SFTOC) and it took over many diverse venues in and around the A6 near to Salford Central train station. I have counted the following venues under the Manchester banner due to their postcodes.

On our first visit in May 2012, we arrived via Salford Crescent Station as there were more speedy trains to that location. The Crescent station only has two platforms but occasionally there is a delightful occurrence of the station announcer excitedly exclaiming ‘Platform Change, Platform Change’ which only in reality necessitates a step forward or backwards to reach the new location! We had only once previously had a couple of drinks around that area in December 2000 prior to watching AC/DC at the MEN Arena.

I have attended three separate SFOTC’s in total and they have always been superbly run chilled events. The central hub for the tickets has been an old industrial building called Islington Mill which is a gig and arts venue with rehearsal rooms within. There is a specific small gig room which in that first year I saw a band called the ABC Club. On a later visit to SFOTC in 2017 I saw Torn Sail, a psychedelic folk-rock band who had the legendary Mark Lanegan contributing to their debut album.

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Islington Mill. Image Credit Fact.

Outside of the festival, we saw Joanne Gruesome there on 18/09/15. They were a five-piece punky band from Cardiff who had modelled their name somewhat bizarrely on musician Joanne Newsom. They were sporadically excellent live in a very intimate setting and I recall the guitarist always facing away from the stage. We had a commendable sally around the local hostelries pre and post gig including a couple of jars in the New Oxford with its array of real ales and were chatting to a couple of punters who travelled all the way across Manchester every Friday to visit the pub.

Down the corridor from the Club room was the Islington Mill Gallery where in 2018 we saw songwriter Claire Wells perform. Outside the back of the building was a large courtyard area where there was a plethora of food options available including appetising looking pizzas. In the corner was a balcony stage called the Engine House where an acoustic duo with a jolly name of White Death were performing.

Our first venue visited at the festival in 2012 was the outermost venue down the A6 away from town, namely The Crescent public house. It was a proper old-fashioned boozer with a distinctive green frontage and a cracking pint of Barnsley bitter on tap. It had a long heritage as it was built in the 1860’s and was a Grade 2 listing building and featured in the good Beer Guide for a sustained period of 25 years. Allegedly Karl Marx and Frederick Engels used to sup in there as they formulated communist principles in the 19th century. The pub sadly closed about five years ago.  

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The Crescent Pub. Image Credit Salford Star.com

The bands played in a very small dark room at the back of the establishment which couldn’t cope with more than 20 people enclosed within.

The first band on were a local act Heroin Diet who produced a 25-minute bracing slab of amusing hardcore punk.  The set curtailed about 5pm on an extremely sunny day so we walked out with ringing ears and squinting like a vampire, thereby creating an interesting start to the day! We returned later to catch sets by an interesting Manchester post rock outfit Dead Sea Apes and a uniquely named 100% Beefcock and the Titsburster, though I cannot remember anything about them bar their name!