Month: June 2022

Lancaster Venue 3 – Lancaster Library

One fantastic initiative that has appeared in the last 17 years (since 2005) is the award winning Get it Loud in Libraries and Lancaster Library was at the forefront, if not the first to undertake this commendable pursuit. The concept being rather simple to see high quality artists in the unusual intimate surroundings of the local library.

Many heavyweight performers have embraced this ethos as an antidote to playing soulless stadium venues. Many libraries have joined the roster including Coventry, Birkenhead, Barrow and Blackpool. Some of the names who have appeared are Florence and the Machine, Idles and Ellie Goulding. I also recall at Lancaster specifically that Frank Turner and Adele have graced the venue. I had attended one library gig before at Finsbury in February 89 to see Peggy Seeger and Ewan McColl and one after in 2017 to see Honeyblood at Wigan Museum of Life (which was actually a library). 

Lancaster Library resides in the northwest corner of Market Square, where in 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie was proclaimed regent by the Jacobite Army. This library enterprise first caught my attention 263 years later in 2008 when Robert Forster was booked for a Lancaster slot.

Lancaster Library. Image Credit creativetourist.com

Robert being one half of the co-writing team alongside Grant McLennan in the enigmatic 1980’s Australian band the Go-Betweens. The gig took place in the front portion of the building and once you got used to the quirky setting, he was very enjoyable. There was an intermission allowing us to scamper over to the nearby John O Gaunt pub, and I recall Algarve Ray had also headed over from the gig and we discussed my recent holiday in the Algarve!

The next visit in 2011 was a double header with a difference as there were two gigs scheduled, one on the Saturday night and the other on Sunday afternoon. Due to the highly opportune synchronicity Gill and I decided to grab a cheap room for the night at the Best Western Hotel near the station.

I met Gill after the PNE match, and we caught a train over, and I recall watching Crawley losing narrowly to Man Utd in the FA Cup 5th round when we were getting changed at the hotel. We grabbed some tea at the 1725 Tapas restaurant on the opposite end of Market Square.

In the intervening three years they had created a stage in the larger room of the library to aid an increased capacity. The act that evening was a band from Ohio called Mona, whose driving force was Nick Brown, the band being named after his grandmother. I had seen them on Jools Holland, and I thought they had the look of a young Glasvegas about them.

Mona. Image Credit NME.

They had just won the BBC Sound of 2011 poll though not yet released their debut album. They garnered some stadium support slots later that year with Kings of Leon and the sound was arguably in the same bracket. On the night the lead singer had a decent set of pipes, and I enjoyed their set. 

The following day, we decided to grab some Sunday lunch and a couple of aperitifs at the Borough gastropub before the 3pm gig. Yuck were a London band that were releasing their self-titled debut album the very next day. They were firmly in the grunge bracket and created a fine racket though I think a night-time gig in a more unkempt venue would have been a better fit for them. They subsequently split in 2015 and were supported that afternoon by emo band Pegasus Bridge.            

My final visit there was on Monday 09/07/12 to see Low and a group of us pottered over to watch them. They were still most certainly in their usual soft hushed vein prior to the shift to their more recent guitar led material. One of the crew left halfway through as he found it all too maudlin, but I thought they were in fine form and the venue played to their strengths.

On arrival back in Preston we had a flier at the Vic and Station before someone foolishly suggested we take advantage of the Old Dog down in Church Street which during the week stayed open until 4am. I finally toppled out of said establishment at 2.50am, my one and only visit to the late bar. Thankfully I had booked Tuesday as leave, but it took me quite a while to beginning functioning the next day!   

Preston Venues 35 and 36

At the bottom end of Friargate you would find the Sun Hotel. On the opposite corner from the Sun, back in the day there was a bakery that used to sell the odd combination of a Cheese and Beetroot sandwich, which remarkably worked but I haven’t sampled that grouping for a while. Now, whilst I am thinking about it, where did I put those cocktail beetroots and Cathedral City…!

Next to the pub you can take a turning into Great Shaw St which runs into Market St West where you pass the Market St Social pub, which is linked to the Plau bar, beyond there is the Playhouse. I used to very occasionally show up there to watch theatre performances but remember it mainly for when it was the location of the Preston film club which I attended a few times, though thinking back the only film I can recall watching was Luc Besson’s Subway featuring Christopher Lambert and Jean Reno. They always rather quaintly used to play the national anthem prior to every performance.

Across the road, in the 80’s was a tiny highly disreputable club called the Cherrytree which I never actually visited, but its reputation preceded it!

Back around on Great Shaw St you would find a former nightclub which had various names over the years including Green, The Club Royale, The Millionaires Club. The club was built in 1920 as a casino but its most famous era was in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s following its name change to the Gatsby in 1970. I remarkably don’t recall ever visiting in that era. It was a recognised Northern Soul/Dance venue, but they apparently also had legendary student nights!

The Gatsby. Image Credit Flickr.

It had two bars and two dancerooms and was a live venue and bands such as Showaddywaddy, Mud and Bay City Rollers graced the stage there.

In the 2010’s it rebadged itself as Blitz, a specific live venue which is not to be confused with the current Blitz next to the bus station, which I know as The Venue which will be covered in a future blog – all still with me?!! 

I saw two gigs there, the first on 28/03/13 was Nine Black Alps, who I was watching for the fourth and most recent time. It was to a degree diminishing returns as they were not as sharp and effective as a band as they had been a decade earlier. The place was half full and they were supported by Youth Society. The venue was even less full later that year when I witnessed a rather tired set from old punks the Vibrators. The site was subsequently sold by UCLAN for student accommodation.

Back on Friargate, the Irish themed bar O’Neills opened its doors in 1996 and swiftly became a regular watering hole for Uncle George and I, quite often being the final pub of the night for a cheeky Guinness and Black. We were recognised to a degree so when they launched the Guinness Cold brand, we were asked to review a couple of free pints, and I can confirm unsurprisingly we readily agreed and the beer passed the test!

Preston O’Neills. Image Credit Trip Advisor

For a few years it also became the location for Christmas Eve gatherings and the pub in a later year also built a rooftop beer garden. The pub name changed over to Shenanigans in 2017 before being refurbished the following year into a more open plan establishment and reopened as the Northern Way.

In the 2010’s they started having live acoustic acts who played either by the front door or on the raised area at the back of the pub, I have quantified this as a single venue as the ‘stages’ were in effect in the same room.

I saw seven bands there between 2013 and 2017. They were namely The Two of Us, Balls Band, Danny Rose, Marcus and Jaidi, Kevin Harper, Eddy Bland, and Sheena Brown. The first named of those was of interest as this was Uncle George and mine’s 400th gig together!