Month: May 2024

Gigs from Abroad – Part 15

In the years from 2016 to 2018 we decided with some friends to undertake an annual jaunt to visit the Christmas markets in Germany.  In the first year we headed to Stuttgart for my debut appearance there, and it was appropriately exceptionally cold. The city is the largest in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and is in close proximity to the Black Forest and is also Germany’s ‘car capital’. Famous previous residents include the footballer Andreas Muller and the current Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

The Stuttgarter Weihnachtsmarkt is one of the largest and oldest Christmas markets in Europe comprising of over 280 stalls in the city centre. It contained an absolutely superb model railway, an artefact I am always eternally fascinated by. Our accommodation was next to the Sudheimer Platz and in the corner of the square was Germany’s first ever funicular built in 1929. It is virtually still in its original format including the old cable car which is in itself a listed building! It takes you on an interesting 550 metre journey on a 28% gradient up to the hilltop area of Waldfriedhof.  

Stuttgart Christmas Market. Image Credit europenbestdestinations.com

In 2018 we returned and this time desired to head out on a train trip to another market and Esslingen was referenced to us as a good place to visit. The market town is located on the River Neckar and lies about 9 miles southeast of Stuttgart and one of its twin cities is Neath in Port Talbot.  When there we traversed up and down the considerable number of lung busting wooden steps to reach Esslinger Burg, the old fortress which once protected the city and the accompanying panoramic views.    

The main rationale for our visit to the town was to attend their famous Medieval Christmas market and the olde world ‘Game of Thrones’ vibe of the event was very enjoyable. It felt novel as alongside the obligatory food and drink and traders selling other wares they had jugglers, minstrels, acrobats and fire magicians. There was also musical entertainment in two separate areas thus we saw a band called Oro on Esslingen Market Stage 1 and a chap called Gudbrugger Goldstein on Esslingen Market Stage 2.   

In the middle year we headed to Heidelberg, and this was the second time I had visited the city.  Heidelberg has considerable history in that around 400,000 years ago ‘Heidelburg Man’ died in a nearby town and his jawbone was discovered in 1907. It was subsequently confirmed that his remains were the earliest evidence of human life in Europe.

The city is in the same large state as Stuttgart and is in the warmest region of the country and also contains Germany’s oldest University, founded in 1386. The city hosted the 1972 Summer Paralympics and famous residents include Friedrich Ebert, the first ever president of Germany, racing driver Nelson Piquet Jr, German football manager Hansi Flick, musician Jackson Browne and actor Michael Fassbender of 12 Mens A Slave and X-Men fame. They were also referenced in Harry Potter as having a high quality Quidditch team called Heidelberg Harriers!

We encountered another funicular which is used by 1m passengers annually. It heads up to Konigstuhl where on our visit we encountered some snow showers, the halfway point is the Castle where we took a break for a beer in the huge bar room.  

Heidelberg Funicular. Image Credit klook.com

Our train trip that weekend was over to Mannheim, which is an anachronism for a German city as the streets are built on a grid pattern (like Glasgow) and are numbered accordingly, this quirk results in its nickname of the Square City. One more famous Mannheim resident to cite here is one of the finest ever tennis players Steffi Graf.

I recall having a sally around a huge department store where there was a comfortable seated area showing Saturday afternoon football on several TV screens which unsurprisingly was populated by primarily the male population! Whilst in attendance at the Mannheim Market we saw the Mannheim Brass Orchestra.

On our last night in Heidelberg, we made the catastrophic error of imbibing too much vino tinto creating a perilous journey the following day. Two further challenges abounded, the first that it is a 50-mile commute back to the airport involving a couple of changes on the rails.

The second was the below freezing weather resulting in us waiting on the runway for an interminable time at the vast Frankfurt Airport before fortunately being given the all clear to depart. Prior to setting of we then had the strange and unfamiliar experience of the plane going through the equivalent of a car wash to clear off the snow. We had a very early night when we arrived home that evening!

Before I depart this week, I want to pay my own homage to Steve Albini who died this week at the tender young age of 61. He was an excellent music producer and undertook the task by concentrating solely on enhancing the band which resulted in hardening Wedding Present’s sound and creating my favourite Pixies album ‘Surfer Rosa’, amongst many other achievements.

Steve Albini on stage. Image Credit rollingstone.com

I caught his later band Shellac once, but my abiding memory is witnessing the intensity of Big Black when I saw them on their penultimate ever British date at Manchester Boardwalk in 1987. The gig gods smiled on us as we only heard about the date on John Peel four days before and queued at the venue at 8pm to obtain one of the last remaining tickets, an unforgettable night!  

Manchester Venues 118 to 120

A couple of months ago in February 2024 I undertook a solo Friday night foray into the city to attend a gig at the Manchester Yes venue.  I had noted prior to setting out that there was an additional performance taking place in the Manchester Yes Roof Terrace which tallied up as my third separate venue in that establishment.  So up the stairs I headed to the top floor to catch Keltio (Nassa) & Josh.

Manchester Yes Roof Terrace. Image Credit Manchester Evening News

On that same night, in a break between sets of the band I had gone to see, I sallied next door to pay a quick visit to Manchester Lass O Gowrie. I have previously paid a fulsome homage in an earlier blog to this venue, and I will not repeat myself here, but suffice to say I have an enduring affection for this venerable old public house. It has many original features and was named after the title of a poem scribed by Scottish poet Lady Caroline Nairne.

The one element I had missed was the opportunity to catch live music there. This omission was rectified on this night by a performance from Tom Fairview and also by earlier performances in February 2022 from the Blues Boys and Tom Mooney who all played towards the back of the pub near the entrance to the beer garden area. To square the circle the latter performance referenced was prior to attending a Nordic Giants show at the Pink Room venue in Yes.

So, one further tale pertaining to Lass O Gowrie if I may. One of my very learned Twitter muso contacts Cath Aubergine brought to my attention a remarkable and unexpected gig she attended there in 2012. There was apparently a monthly residency around that time run by Valentine Records called TAGO>MAGO>, at their final event they became aware of the fact that Damo Suzuki of Can fame was in the country and remarkably managed to persuade him to play a backstreet pub in Manchester.

Lass O Gowrie pub with the Yes venue in the foreground. Image Credit oxfordroadcorridor.com

In my previous Lass O Gowrie blog, I told the story of seeing the cast of Coronation Street in residence at the pub. This must have been a running theme as on the night of the Damo gig the cast of Waterloo Road had a bit of a do there and some of the crew were still in the venue when the gig took place.

When you reach the bottom of the steps adjacent to Manchester Oxford Road station you discover a triangle of pubs, The Salisbury, Thirsty Scholar and Manchester Grand Central. The latter named is a four-storey building located on Oxford Road directly opposite the Principal Hotel. The pub is placed within what was known in 1820 as ‘Little Ireland’, an exceedingly poverty hit slum area at that time. In 1900 the landlord Peter Bostock was listed as one of the licensees who were suspected of selling unadulterated beer which resulted in arsenic poising causing 70 deaths.

It has had many names over the years, Oxford Wine Bar, The Oxford, Schooner Inn, Cork & Screw, The Shady Lady and Beef & Barley (a Steak House). The current name was based on the proximity to the nearby station and a nod to the more well known New York train station. They used to have a club downstairs called Subway which closed in 2002 but there is current talk of possibly reopening it.  The pub was a regular stopping point for punters visiting prior to attending the now defunct Jillys Rockworld nightclub.

Grand Central pub. Image Credit myhospitalitysolutions.co.uk

The musical genre of the establishment is strictly in the rock/metal domain, similar to the Pub in Lancaster. They used to hold a Tuesday night Battle for Bloodstock event with local bands competing for a slot at the Bloodstock Metal Festival in Derby. Additionally, bands play free of charge on a Thursday though that seems to have thinned out in recent years.

I have attended three times, and they are all either before or after scheduled gigs at nearby venues. My first attendance was in November 2012 prior to a Tame Impala gig at the Ritz and the band on stage that night were called Gridlocked. I visited four months later and saw Deformation of Man from Sheffield and their heavy sound had them being hailed as the Steel City’s answer to Lamb of God. My final appearance was in July 2018 where I witnessed another noisy combo called Prometheus.