Year: 2023

Gigs from Abroad Part 9 – Brussels

On the annual lad’s trip in 2014 we decided to visit a new European country; hence I made my debut foray to Belgium and the city of Brussels. For time saving purposes based on an overall 48-hour jaunt, we took the flight and discounted the Eurostar option.  

Brussels is the capital of Belgium and has grown exponentially since the Second World War and has become a major centre for international politics and the unofficial capital of the European Union. The Grand-Place in the centre is a UNESCO World heritage site, and it is a very impressive sight when lit up in the evening and we frequented a couple of bars surrounding there. Jez Catlow and I, who is a fellow connoisseur of foreign dramas kept referencing Salamander, a fine drama about a bank heist based in Brussels that we had both recently watched.

On our meanderings, we passed the same shop window a few times, where they had on display gold waving maneki-neko fortune cats, which we obviously had to wave at on each passing, the last time when returning rather late at night! Around teatime we found a restaurant where I had possibly the biggest bowl of spaghetti sauce ever, it was rather delicious.

Maneki-neko cat. Image Credit pinterest.com.mx

In the afternoon, one of the chaps had noticed a sign outside a club advertising English psych rock that very evening, so we stored that away for future reference. With me as a cheer leader we returned later to investigate and identified that the club in question was Brussels Madame Moustache.

Madame Moustache is a neo-cabaret venue located on Place Sainte Catherine in the Ste-Catherine area. There is a sun terrace bar outside where you can sit on beach chairs by the canal during the day, and have a cold beer served through a hatch.

At night, it transforms into a club open until 4am, with the musical slant being in the hip hop and funk and soul domain and they hold occasional gigs. I read on recent reviews that they have bizarrely begun to charge punters for the sheer temerity of wanting to visit the lavatory. I also gleaned that the venue is currently shut due to a recent fire.

Brussels Madame Moustache. Image Credit flickr.com

I am assuming the club is named after Eleanor Dumont (born Simone Jules) in 1829, who was a legendary gambler on the American Frontier, especially during the Gold Rush. Perhaps it is a surprise that Neil Young didn’t pen a tune about her! She was known as Madame Moustache due to the appearance of a line of dark hair on her upper lip and she owned a gambling parlour in Nevada, California and became known as ‘the woman dealer’.

We decided to take a punt to enter the establishment and I am so glad we did as the band playing was the Cult of Dom Keller from Nottingham. We caught about three quarters of their barnstorming set and had a brief chat with them afterwards. They were lovely lads and informed us that this was their final date on their first ever European tour.   

Cult of Dom Keller. Image Credit ents24.com

On Day 2, we escorted one of the crew Tony Dewhurst on the train down to the port destination of Ostend, as he was off to see Killing Joke in a leisure centre near the town. Ostend had a beach and a seaside faded grandeur vibe about it and there are still ferries available to the town from Ramsgate, Hull and Dover.

We located a bookies, which is unusual for a European city which enabled us to have a bet on the Scottish Grand National taking place that day. We watched it in a nearby bar and got chatting to a group of football fans whose team was playing Ostend. They were fascinated by our reaction to our local rivals Blackpool being hammered and we ended up teaching them some radio ‘unfriendly’ anti-Blackpool chants.

At a later point, returning from the afore mentioned bookmakers I heard these lads unprompted singing one of the newly learnt ditties whilst heading down the street, thus let it never be said that I am not a fierce advocate of fostering good relations and shared interests with our European counterparts! 

Tony headed off to his gig and we jumped back onto the train and grabbed the opportunity of one more stop on the line to take in the sights of the pretty town of Bruges. It was a proper chocolate-box place, and I would like to return at some stage for a more extended visit.  

We did however struggle a tad navigating a route from the train station as there didn’t appear to be a natural path through to the town unless we completely missed it! On our return journey we followed a chap with an old-fashioned beat box who led us like a pied piper back to the station and then onto the ongoing train returning to Brussels. 

Manchester Venue 83 – Etihad Stadium

Nearby where we live now in south Manchester is the Fallowfield Loop which is an off-road cycling, walking and horse-riding path. It traverses the eight-mile route from Chorlton Cum Hardy metro station through Fallowfield, Levenshulme, Gorton and ends at the Ashton Canal, and I have cycled it many times. 

It runs down the old ‘Manchester Central Railway’ line which closed in 1988 and the ‘Friends of the Fallowfield Loop’ were instrumental in then converting it into the cycle route you see today. It is believed to be the longest urban cycleway in Britain.

A frosty Fallowfield Loop. Image Credit flickriver.com

During the pandemic, we decided to walk the lengthy route into town because there was quite frankly nothing else to do at that time! When the path reaches the canal, you can take a left turn and a couple of miles later you find yourself at the Etihad Campus, otherwise known as Sportcity. This is part of the continuation of the ongoing development of East Manchester and there is their own distinct metro stop attached to the complex which was opened in 2013.  

Within the same area you find the national cycling velodrome where I have attended a couple of times and seen cycling’s royalty, Laura and Jason Kenny in action and continually marvel at the astonishingly steep banking they have to navigate on the track!

The Campus is owned by Manchester City football club and contains the Manchester Etihad Stadium and City football academy. I have never attended in a football capacity as our paths seldom cross and I once also missed a famous 1-0 Preston North End win at City’s old ground at Maine Road in 1998 due to having a job interview early the next day.       

Adjacent to the complex, there is a current venture jointly run between Manchester City, LA developers, and the singer Harry Styles to build a Co-op Live stadium. This will become the UK’s largest live entertainment arena with a 23.5k capacity and there are plans to have around 120 live events annually staged there.

The project has an eyewatering cost of £365m and is due to open in 2024. Whether there is scope for two huge auditoriums in the city with the Manchester Arena situated about three miles away remains to be seen, or will it subsequently result in them becoming competitors to each other?  

The Etihad Stadium was originally built to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the following year Manchester City made their home there and it has played host to a variety of sporting events in the intervening years. The stadium capacity is 53,400 but increases to 60,000 for gigs (by utilising the pitch area) which take place during the summer months. The first concert there was the Red Hot Chilli Peppers supported by James Brown in 2004 and in 2011 Take That played eight nights with tickets sales of over 400k for the duration.  

Manchester Etihad Stadium. Image Credit traveldigg.com

We had previously seen AC/DC twice at Manchester Arena and Glasgow Hampden Park and decided to witness them again in 2016. In between purchasing the tickets and the date of the show the lead singer Brian Johnson had to pull out with the very valid excuse of hearing loss. Remarkably he has since gone through experimental treatment to restore his hearing and is now back performing again.

It was announced that somewhat bizarrely he would be replaced by the Guns and Roses lead singer Axl Rose. Following that news, we hummed and hawed whether to claim a refund but subsequently went past the deadline, so we had no choice but to attend.

On the night Uncle George, John and Paul Dewhurst met in Monroes near Piccadilly Station for a couple of scoops before diving onto the metro. Upon alighting we were met by all the considerable food and amenities surrounding the complex and then headed up to our seats at the back of the stadium. 

Now, Axl Rose has a considerable reputation for being a prickly customer and arriving on stage at very very late hours. Thankfully, on the day he played it with a very straight bat perhaps helped in part by the fact that one of his feet was in plaster due to a recent accident. As a result of Brian’s absence AC/DC were not in the same league as previous performances but admittedly it was not as bad as I feared it could be, and they had some inspirational moments, with ‘Highway to Hell’ being a personal favourite on the night.   

There was one particular blissed out punter directly in front of us who was having the time of his life and danced throughout the whole performance. The metro was packed so we followed the crowds by walking back into the town via the canals in the regenerated area of New Islington.

We were at that point in time in advanced preparation for relocating to Manchester but had already decided on a location in the suburbs and written off moving into the city centre, which could well have been a more viable option for us if we had been twenty years younger!