Month: February 2023

Preston Venue 42 – The Venue

Situated near to the Bus Station on Lords Walk there is a Preston pub with a long history and many owners. In the 1960’s and 1970’s it was named Moonraker’s and was a firmly established music venue, details on the musical content in this era are a tad sketchy but local legends Dennis Delight and various punk bands are referenced as having played there.

For the 1980’s kids out there you may recognise it when its moniker was the Amsterdam Bar before then changing its name to the Blue Moon. As you entered the pub from the entrance there was a reasonable size tap room and a door to the right transported you into the large main room. It was the first pub Gill and I ever had a drink in on our first date back in January 1988.  

The pub in its current Blitz phase. Image Credit Ents24.

I was a decent pool player in my youth briefly playing for the Joplins pub team, and for many years in the Blue Moon tap room there were a couple of pool tables and I recall one Friday night in there going a personal best ‘winner stay on’ ten games undefeated.  

The name changed again to the Town End bar creating an affinity and linkage to the local Preston North End football team. It then became Pachas which was designed as a ‘fun pub’ under the tutelage of Colin Durnan, who previously ran the infamous Hollywood Bar on Deepdale Road.

In 2004, John Bates, the owner of 12 Bar on Church St took over and reinstated it as a live music hub  again and it then passed over by the owner of the Mill who renamed it the Venue. It then morphed into a club called Beats of Rage. At that current point in time there was a huge game changing Tithebarn development planned across that area of Preston, threatening impending closure so it was cleverly renamed Coda, representing the final bars of a song and they became a successful dance club with a renowned club title Mixmag. Somewhat unsurprisingly the Tithebarn scheme never reached fruition.

A complete change in direction ensued in 2010 when the renowned Frog and Bucket comedy club became ensconced there and the likes of John Bishop and Terry Christian graced the stage. Sarah Millican used to utilise the club to test run her brand-new material.

It then finally became its latest incarnation by reverting back its musical roots under the name of Blitz. Now, somewhat confusingly I did cover in an earlier blog my attendance at the other venue in Preston which for a short period was also called Blitz which in 2013 was in the old Gatsby nightclub building on Great Shaw Street.  

This particular blog though is concerned with the Lords Walk Blitz site where they have been closely linked to Action Records and have had pre tour or promo performances from the likes of Fontaines DC and Snow Patrol.

My one attendance there was on 14/07/06 when it was called Preston The Venue. It was a Battle of the Bands event and the first act we witnessed was Jelly’s Last Jam, who formed in 2005 from the ashes of a previous band called Frencheryk. The bassist Martin Clarke was co-managing the Mitre Tavern pub down on North Road, and two of the band members were also residing there so many of their early rehearsals took place in that boozer. The pub itself has long since closed and is now a business called Vets and Pets.  

The Mitre Tavern. Image Credit Lancashire Evening Post.

The other band we saw were called Green Room who are a three-piece from Preston who also formed in 2005. Their first ever gig was held at the Adelphi venue in Preston, and they were a female fronted act who sat in the trip-hop genre, not dissimilar to Portishead and Massive Attack.       

Gigs from Abroad Part 8 – Madeira

In late August 2022, we visited the island of Madeira for the first time, it has had an interesting history since it was first discovered and inhabited by the Portuguese in 1419. Their initial chief export was in the sugar industry, but this trade was eventually superseded by the infinitely more successful Madeira wine. They like many other countries sat under the auspices of the British empire before being returned to Portuguese rule in the 19th century.

They finally received their independence and autonomy on the 1st July 1976, and they are evidently proud of this status as they are mainly reliant on homemade produce with very few imported goods. One of these that I sampled regularly was their devilishly good pastries and cakes, especially their pastel de nata custard tarts! They even had a Cake of the Day at the hotel, now who could resist the comparison challenge set there! It was also refreshing to see that they served only the island brewed Coral beer.

Pastel de Nata cakes, don’t mind if I do! Image Credit My Gorgeous Recipes

The main town Funchal is an intriguing place to visit with its vibrant old town and keeps you fit via walking up some seriously steep hills. The island is the birthplace of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and he has an airport and a hotel named after him and a statue situated on Funchal harbour front.

We rode the scenic cable car up from the town to the top of Monte, but I did find it a challenge from a vertigo angle, so needed to find an alternate way to return down the hill. The toboggan was not running but the No 22 Bus was available. The subsequent bus ride turned out to be one of the highlights of the holiday as he literally flew down the hill round hairpin corners and woe betide anyone in his way, and then there was the dramatic braking to stop at the sporadic bus stops en route!  

On a musical front, we caught a singer called Sonia who was playing in Madeira Carlton Pestana Pub, which was located at the top of a particularly lung-busting incline. On the harbour front there was the Madeira Promenade Kiosk were a band called Kawana Pacha performed, and I recall them playing a rather dodgy Abba cover!

We were fortunate that whilst we were visiting the seventeen-day Madeira Wine Festival was taking place on the walkway of Avenida Arriaga in front of the Cathedral where you could sample many of the local vinos. On the night of our attendance the musical backdrop was provided by Sena Collective.

Mr Ronaldo and I. Image Credit Gill Crossthwaite

In the old town there was a terrific open market called Mercado Dos Lavradores where they had on display amongst many other items an extraordinary amount of vibrant looking chillies. Attached to the market was the Madeira Apuaza Café where we saw the Jazz Quarter play.  

If you turned left out of our hotel away from the town, this took you to the more hotel touristy area. One decent bar on this route was the Madeira Hole in One, where a local act Gustav was singing, and he performed a decent version of the archetypal ‘Quando Quando’.  

Further down this road brought you to a fine bar called Madeira Nos Copos Cocktail Bar. They have bands on there every night and to a sufficient demand that there is a makeshift stand outside the venue that we were too late to access. As a result, we grabbed a spot in the adjacent bar next door to watch a decent band called Hoje Para Animar.  

Our hotel room was up on the 13th floor and provided a fine view of the Madeira Carlton Pestana Pool Bar where wesaw a local singer called Gabrielle play a set including a commendable but somewhat extended loungecore version of ‘Wicked Game’ by Chris Isaak.   

The following evening from the exact same vantage point we could see over to the adjoining exclusive Madeira Reid’s Hotel. This viewpoint was now resembling a lite version of the flats overlooking Castlefield Bowl or Lytham Festival!

There was a wedding taking place and the singer was approaching the end of their set. Now you would surely in the circumstances expect happy ‘looking to the future’ tunes which made the choice of the penultimate song even more bizarre, as she then broke into the unmistakeable intro of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’!