Month: December 2024

Manchester Venues 149 to 150 – New Century Hall

Of the four main city centre train stations, Victoria would probably be my least attended as it has always been slightly on the wrong side of the tracks for me! Now if you depart the station down the approach heading alongside the tram tracks towards Shudehill Interchange but deviate marginally to the left down Hanover Street, you reach the Sadler’s Cat public house.

Sadler’s Cat pub. Image Credit secretmanchester.com

The Sadler’s was originally known as the Pilcrow which was purpose built as part of a regeneration programme commitment by the Co-operative Society, following the demolition of the Crown and Cushion pub to make way for a new public road. The current name reflects the commemoration of the very site of the first hot air balloon flight in 1785 and the pilot being one James Sadler who took his feline friend with him on the trip! The pub is contained within the NOMA complex and is now owned by the Cloudwater brewery and is a good basking spot in the summer with a suite of outside tables.

Staying with the Co-op theme, across the square from the hostelry you find the New Century Hall which was built as their 1000 capacity Insurance Society building in 1962 and sits adjacent to New Century House. They had many major acts play there in the 1960’s including Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Kinks. There is also an anecdote of the Jimi Hendrix Experience performing there in 1966 and a young John Cooper Clarke being denied entry as he was not wearing the obligatory tie, despite being bedecked in Fred Perry and a striped sports coat, bouncers eh! 

John Cooper Clarke. Image Credit pinterest.com

It is a three-storey building with the basement containing the Access Creative College where you can obtain degrees in music and gaming. The ground floor houses the Manchester New Century Food Hall where I first visited in December 2022 on a Christmas works do where we partook some tucker from one of the many food vendors and watched the England v Wales World Cup match. Where the big screen showing the match was located, there is normally a stage, and I have seen a couple of local singers perform there.

Upstairs from there is the Manchester New Century Hall which on first sight I was instantly impressed by with the wood surrounds and tasteful lighting. Even when busy it remains an accessible venue with ability to scoot down the sides to obtain a spot nearer to the stage. I can see myself in the future checking their listings from a venue viewpoint ahead of many others in the city where they become an almighty scrum when reaching capacity, the Albert Hall being a case in point.

My first attendance was in May 2023 with Gill and our good friends and fellow rabble rousers Jo and Paul. We had a couple of drinks around the Kampus area near Piccadilly and in the Northern Quarter. The band we were going to see was The Beths from Auckland in New Zealand. They were promoting their hugely recommended third album ‘Expert in a Dying Field’ which I have given serious airplay to as I love the upbeat nature of it, and I thoroughly enjoyed their set. Their sound reminds me of a fellow upcoming band called Fortitude Valley.      

Manchester New Century Hall. Image Credit manchestereveningnews.co.uk

My next attendance was with Gill in June 2024 where we only shamefully discovered the Abel Heywood Hydes brewery pub for the first time, but we have rectified that by attending a couple of times since. The band that night was the Lovely Eggs who I didn’t enjoy as much as their previous times I have seen them.  

There then followed two attendances in Sept 2024. The first was remarkably for me to see Ride for the first time, however I had previously seen an individual set by Mark Gardener at Preston Continental back in November 2011 where they also showed a screening of ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’ which provides a story of the Oxford music scene featuring Ride alongside many other bands.    

For the uninitiated, Ride were prime shoegaze pioneers releasing two highly touted albums on Creation records in the early 1990’s. They broke up in 1996 before reforming in 2014 and were touring their latest album ‘Interplay’. The sound quality was poor early on but once they sorted that out, they were excellent.

My latest visit involved a large group of us including my pals Jason Gill and Barry Jury going to see the Go Team for the fourth time and for my first time for 14 years. They played in full their superb debut album ‘Thunder Lighting Strike’ with other tunes interspersed in their set.           

As a postscript I have managed to obtain some degree of numerical symmetry as New Century Hall was the actual 150th Manchester venue that I had visited.                                                                                                                                                         

Other British Gigs Part 7 – York

There is archaeological evidence that gives weight to the theory that the area of York existed as far back as 8000BC. As you cross over into an AD timeline the town was owned by the Romans and the Vikings, and it was subsequently significantly damaged in the Norman conquest of 1066. In later times, it prospered as the urban centre of Yorkshire and remarkably in 1660, it was the third-largest city in England behind London and Norwich.

Famous York folk include Judi Dench, Frankie Howard, former England manager Steve McClaren, composer John Barry and the bands Shed Seven and the 1980’s ‘anarchists’ The Redskins who once famously in 1984 brought a striking miner onto stage on Channel 4’s The Tube to make a speech during their song but his microphone was switched off! They also must have a sweet tooth in the area as the chocolatiers Joseph Rowntree and Joseph Terry (latterly of Chocolate Orange fame) were born there. 

The Redskins. Image Credit Pinterest

York is literally stacked with history and remarkably contains 34 conservation areas, 2084 listed buildings, 22 ancient monuments and a plethora of olde worlde atmospheric old boozers! I have very fond memories of visiting York as a child and tromping along the remnants of the city walls.

We reacquainted about 20 years ago with some old friends that Gill trained with back in the day and geographically York was a mutually agreeable meeting place to have a rendezvous. We had three annual trips and, on each occasion, coupled it with a jaunt to the nearby Wetherby races and I recall one drunken night visiting the local branch of Popworld! On one of those forays, I also remember being in a boozer there watching Michael Owen score two late goals for England to win a terrific match 3-2 against old rivals Argentina.  

The small downsides are that the city can be a tad touristy and has a rather complex one-way traffic system. To mitigate this, we now choose to travel there on the train and tend to stay at the nearby Premier Inn. As a train enthusiast I always try and make a pilgrimage to the terrific and heartily recommended Railway Museum which first opened its doors in 1975. There are even two public houses encased within the station, namely the Duke of York and the York Tap to whet your whistle before the journey home!     

My favourite ever racecourse is located in the city and the races have taken place since 1731 on the nearby Knavesmire accessed via a short shuttle bus ride from the station. The Knavesmire is a large green space where the gallows were originally located, and Dick Turpin was hanged there in 1739. It is such a good viewing course and exemplifies one of my visualisations of the ‘green and pleasant land’.

York Racecourse. Image Credit webaviation.co.uk

When in attendance in 2018 there was a pop-up stage in the York Races County Stand, where we saw Dr Jazz who are a local 6-piece Great Gatsby band who play songs from the 1920/1930’s era and are bedecked in top hat, waistcoats and bow ties. We saw the same band again at our most recent visit a couple of months ago.

In 2018 they also had another band called Dr Thirsty playing on the York Races Tattersalls Stage, who are a wedding and function band. On our next visit the following year we witnessed Superlicks, a locally based three piece ‘party’ band.  On our latest trip they had then set up a bespoke area thus creating York Races Tattersalls Stage 2 where the Irish Jags were performing some woeful covers. Additionally, by the bus pick up area there was the York Racecourse Stage where a singer called Ed Winchard was playing.  

On the 2024 visit we decided to stay a couple of nights and on the Thursday, we discovered a terrific pub called the Market Cat, a three-storey establishment with views of the market and the archaic streets of the city. They had a comprehensive selection of fine ales and tidy looking pizzas. Best of all, they had a fine indie soundtrack, and I heard tracks by the View, Sea Power and most excitingly Husker Du whilst ensconced there. On our way back to the digs we caught a chap called Barney playing in York Brewdog.

Market Cat viewpoint. Image Credit tripadvisor.co.uk

We braved the chaotic local Wetherspoons for breakfast on race day and had a good sally round the city post -racing including a sly return visit to the Market Cat. On the Saturday we were on York St Helen’s Square, off Stonegate which was the original location for the departure point for stagecoaches to London. On a pop up stage, we saw Malachy playing whilst three years earlier we witnessed local four piece King No-One there. The latter recently played at the Year End Festival I attended in Manchester a couple of weeks ago.