Year: 2022

Other British Gigs 3 and 4

I managed to catch Mogwai three times in the 2006 calendar year as I saw them in Edinburgh and London. The third strand of that trilogy was the last date of a short British tour which took place at Sheffield Plug on 07/04/06. My attendance of the event was in doubt until the last minute as I was a tad under the weather, but generally nothing would stand in my way of attending Mogwai gigs!

Thus, a train was boarded by Uncle George and I on the Friday afternoon via Manchester into Sheffield. John Dewhurst was not in attendance as the birth of his son Joe was imminent, frighteningly Joe is now aged 16 and just about to commence his first apprenticeship.

It was my virgin trip into the steel city, and I have always aspired one day to attend the World Snooker at the Crucible Theatre. Linked to that, I have a pal called Dave Dyson whose one of his claims to fame is that he was in attendance in 1983 when Cliff Thorburn famously made the first televised 147 break at the World Championships.

We had a quick foray into the bookies as it was Ladies Day at the Grand National meeting and we found a 33-1 winner which set us up in good stead for the day. We had a mulch around a couple of pubs before heading over to the venue located on 14-16 Matilda Street.

The club first opened in 2005 and modelled itself as a live music and club night venue opening to 6am at the weekends. Local luminaries Arctic Monkeys and the Prodigy have played there. It was also an award winner in the Club Bar None Awards in 2014.

The venue subsequently closed just before the pandemic struck. However, there are green shoots of recovery evident as the record shop Record Junkee, which sits opposite, are planning to reopen the establishment under the name Network and reinstate gigs and club nights there.  There are also plans for a bowling alley, drinking and dining area to be located in the original Plug car park.

The Sheffield Plug. Image Credit sheffieldhistory.co.uk

I recall the venue being down in the basement and it contained a very low roof in the style of the old International 1 in Manchester. As a result, it was the loudest Mogwai performance I have ever witnessed, and they do set a very high bar in that regard. There were literally people with hands over their ears at certain points during the set.     

The bands choice of the last three tracks contributed to this cacophony, being namely ‘2 Rights Make 1 Wrong’, We’re No Here’ and ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’.  We spent the return journey on the Saturday, trying without success to identify the winner of the National that afternoon.

On one weekend when I was visiting my brother in Nottingham in July 2008, he mentioned there was a festival that a friend’s band was participating in on the Sunday. So, I agreed to provide a lift there for him as it was on my route of travelling back to Preston.

The event was the Belper Music Festival though I can find scant details when I searched, so I don’t know whether it was only in existence for a short period of time. It took place on the narrow streets of the town and as it encompassed a bonus new venue I obviously had to stick around and watch a couple of acts! Thus, on a small stage on the main drag I saw two local bands, namely Moscow Straits and the Re-enactments.

Two postscripts from me if I may, I have just heard the brutally sad news of Mimi Parker of Low’s untimely death from evil ovarian cancer. I shall always the treasure the few times I saw them live and the heavenly harmonies they created. We shall always have ‘Just Like Christmas’, which is our Christmas present opening song on Christmas morning.

Mimi Parker of Low. Image Credit www.acclaimedmusic.net

The other element is that I have finally reached 100k words in my blog, a future book at some stage methinks. What was the profound 100,000th word I hear you say? Could it be ‘the’ or ‘but’? Well, it actually somewhat appropriately turned out to be ‘Manchester’!

Manchester Venues 71 to 73

One of the inherent joys of moving to a brand-new area is continuing to discover new establishments. When we first moved to Manchester in September 2017, we missed on our initial scouting trips the existence of a couple of public houses and adjoining restaurant on Wilmslow Road just after Fletcher Moss Park in East Didsbury. The restaurant around the time, previously the Fat Loaf pub, was a fine Mediterranean tapas called Olive and Vine before closing in 2019 and reopening as Jajoo Indian which has had a chequered history with alleged staff welfare issues.

The boozer directly across from there is the Didsbury which is a former coach house and retains many of its original 18th century features with wooden beams and open fireplaces. It sits on the site of a much older inn, the Ring of Bells which originates back to 1644. The story goes that Bonnie Prince Charlie camped nearby with his army in 1785 recovering after his defeat at Derby (not in a football match!)

It has a very large beer garden at the front, which has recently been refurbished and used to be the location of Didsbury Village Green. The pub is now a Brewers Fayre establishment and serves fine gastro pub fare and was one of the ‘Covid hero’ places for me and thus I hold it in high regard.

I recall us sitting outside in the midst of the lockdown with a couple of friends in our pre booked seats, shivering at 9.30pm in the cold night air but refusing to go home until our time window had expired! One time, I just missed a music act there once as we decided to leave whilst they were still setting up their equipment, but maybe next time!

Literally next door is the Didsbury Ye Olde Cock Inn, and the name provides the very obvious clue to its previous cock fighting history. The building has references back to 1235 and it has had a couple of major refurbishments in bygone times. In the 19th century it had a haunted reputation where the servants refused to sleep on the premises. The owner installed iron gates at the time at the entrance to the adjoining gardens which became locally known as ‘the Gates to Hell’.  The pub gained Grade II Listing in 1974 and the current Greene King owned pub has an olde world feel.

Ye Olde Cock Inn to the right and the Didsbury to the left. Image Credit Flickr.

The pub though always seems to have an unnecessarily disorganised vibe to it which tarnishes its allure, hence not a place we visit regularly. However, on one of our sporadic attendances on 11/11/17 we saw a decent young local singer called Jessica Kemp, who has some Radio 2 airplay and counts Clint Boon amongst her fanbase.   

Further down Wilmslow Road towards Didsbury Village takes you past Didsbury Park. The park being one of the first to be built in the city and was redesigned to include two bowling greens. Reputedly there are rumours of an air raid shelter being located below the football field and it is a pleasant spot on a sunny day.

At the Didsbury Festival alongside competitions for the waggiest tail (dogs!) they utilised the small Didsbury Park Stage, which is arguably more of a park keepers storage area. On this very ‘stage’ were Tinfoils, an enjoyable local three-piece garage punk band.  A month later, at another event I saw an act called Peters Sounds play on Didsbury Park Green (the football pitch!).

Didsbury Park. Image Credit Pinterest.