Year: 2026

Liverpool Venues 25 to 27

Firstly, this week I will look at the latest hostelry visited within the cornucopia of establishments within the Matthew Street enclave. The lineage of the very traditional Liverpool White Star can be traced back to the 1880’s and this is proved by a reference to the White Star Carvery and Bar within an 1887 Empire Theatre programme. It is named after the Titanic shipping owners White Star Line.  

Apparently, the pub in those days remains relevantly unchanged from today, apart from the fact there used to be a back yard and there was living accommodation upstairs. Astoundingly there were no ladies lavatories in the building until 1987, the wafer thin justification for this was due to the premise of endeavouring to discourage visits from the large number of prostitutes working in the city post Second World War up to the late 1980’s.    

After the war, a punter called Mr Quinn purchased five pubs in the city, including this one and on all that quintet he inscribed the word Quinns on the front windows. To a degree that name stuck to the level that the good beer guide named the pub as the White Star (Quinns 2).

The Beatles ‘back wall’. Image Credit pinterest.com

In the 1960’s, two promoters named Bob Wooler (the original DJ in the Cavern Club) and Alan Williams arranged for bands to play in the back room, and that is where the Beatles played their first ever gig. That room is also where the bands were paid after they had performed at the Cavern and naturally contains Beatles memorabilia, known locally as the ‘Beatles back wall’.

Apparently, Brian Epstein also discussed with Mr Wooler there in 1963 about their upcoming appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show which provided their first exposure to American audiences. On my one foray there I saw a local singer called Siobhan performing.   

Across town on Renshaw Street within the Grand Central building, you will find the Liverpool Liffey Bar, and as I am sure you can glean from its moniker it is yet another Irish themed hostelry, this time named after the river which permeates straight through Dublin city centre.  The plethora of such bars is no surprise when you factor in that 75% of Liverpudlians have Irish descent, the highest heritage of any British city apart from Glasgow.

The pub was subject to a long running rental dispute with a former tenant which resulted in the pub suddenly closing in March 2022, the disagreement also impacting on the Smokie Mo’s and Nelly Foley bars, which were reviewed in a previous blog. The Liffey was closed for around a year and grabbed that fallow period as an opportunity to undergo a £200,000 refurbishment.

The Liffey Bar. Image Credit liverpoolecho.co.uk

From a business profit viewpoint, they ensured that they managed to reopen in time for St Patricks Day on Friday 17 March 2023 and must have expected a busy one by stocking fifteen barrels of Guinness which equates to 1500 pints, you would be a tad merry after that! They have live music every night and on my visit, there was a singer called Paddy performing.

The Liverpool Sound City festival is an annual multi venue music shindig similar in structure to the Dot to Dot events. It was founded in 2008 and acts such as White Lies, White Denim, Gil Scott Heron, Swans and Hold Steady played in some of those earlier years.

It also runs in conjunction with the John Peel World Cup which is a British Heart Foundation led event where teams derived from band members and music industry bods play in a five a side tournament. It is a gala that I have always yearned to attend and in May 2025 that came to fruition.

Now, my football team Preston North End had proceeded to make an absolute dogs’ dinner of the end of the season, and this allied with some unfeasibly spectacular results from their rivals meant that the spectre of relegation had gone to the last game. Thus, I was nervously checking the scores on the train commute over but results thankfully went in our favour and we achieved safety. I could now relax, and as a result the first cold one did not touch the sides!

The hub points for picking up our wristbands and then our first venue was Liverpool Spanish Caravan. The bar and tapas restaurant is located on Slater Street, and the side wall of the building contains a large mural of ex Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. There was a spacious indoor bar and beer garden and a decent choice of beverages.   

Spanish Caravan complete with mural. Image Credit liverpoolecho.co.uk

At our visiting time the singer on the small stage at the end of the bar was a chap called Oscar Blue who maintained our Irish theme by hailing from County Clare. He had a busker vibe about him and has apparently been a hit on social media where his initial debut singles have been streamed over 10 million times globally.  

Manchester Venue 193 – Castlefield Bowl

The Castlefield area of Manchester has an abundance of historical context within its borders. It was the site of the Roman fort of Mamucium/Mancunium that evolved into the later name of Manchester, and it contained the terminus of the Bridgewater Canal, the world’s first industrial waterway initially built in 1764.

Additionally, there is another world premiere with the first ever passenger railway terminating at Liverpool Road railway station in 1830, which is a Grade I listed building and was sold for a princely sum of £1 and is now part of the impressive Science and Industry Museum.

There is also the Castlefield basin which was where the old coal and yarn wharfs where located and which has gone through a major rejuvenation over the last couple of decades. Luxury flats, pubs and restaurants have appeared including the Wharf with its decent tucker and Dukes 92 with its huge outdoor seating area, the pub being named after Lock 92 where the canals originally merged. Castle Quay there now houses Hits Radio and Greatest Hits Radio.

Castlefield Basin. Image Credit Manchester Evening News

Castlefield was designated as a conservation area in 1980 and then the United Kingdom’s initial designated urban heritage park in 1982. There is the elevated and rather chilly Deansgate-Castlefield tram stop, which was previously named G-Mex. There used to be a direct path that took you past the G-Mex (where 33 years ago I saw Madness) and straight into the Great Northern complex, but that has now been partially blocked off.

If you decline to take the steps down from the station you can then gain access to the Castlefield Viaduct. This was built in 1892 and there has recently been a roof garden created which can be seen from passing trains and trams and is open for visits in the summer months.

From that high vantage point there are a set of circular steps that drops you to a grassy area in front of the aforementioned fort which has been partially rebuilt. When I have traversed that route I have quite often noted that the area is home to a couple of what I shall coin as the ‘Castlefield Swans’ who own that patch. On one particular occasion I witnessed them having a fun day out as they strutted noisily down a busy Deansgate and as a result caused chaos during the peak commuter time!

There are a few more steps down from ‘Swan With Two Necks’ (not ‘Lake’ as there is no water feature!) which brings you into Castlefield Bowl. The site was rebuilt in 1993 by creating an amphitheatre with a semi-cantilever structure which became a natural home to stage gigs and events with a capacity of 8,450.

Castlefield Bowl. Image Credit ilovemanchester.com

The first show there was Ian Brown on Millenium eve 1999. Other bands to play there include Noel Gallagher, Arcade Fire and New Order and the site was utilised as a Fan Park during the 2010 Football World Cup. In 2017 it was decided to set up an annual event of shows across a couple of summer weekends under the banner of the Sounds of the City festival.    

I had always wanted to visit the arena after seeing it regularly when heading into the city on the train, and my first opportunity presented itself at the 2018 shindig. The gig on Friday 6th July was during the sweltering 2018 World Cup summer, and I recall our group watching the second half of the France v Uruguay quarter final in the Footage pub on Oxford Road before grabbing some tea in the nearby Hatch complex.

We then gravitated to nearer to the venue with a visit to the Deansgate pub. Upon arrival, I discovered it to be a well-designed area with a good view of the stage from any vantage point. The spur for purchasing the tickets initially was to catch the old troubadour Elvis Costello for the first time who was the designated support act on the night. However, he became ill shortly before and had to cancel a few dates including ours and he was replaced by the Buzzcocks.

The headline act was Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott who most certainly have the tunes including in my view one of the finest ever opening lines of ‘I love you from the bottom of my pencil case’. An entertaining aspect was that as the trains have a panoramic view of the stage, one stopped for a decent length of time on the overlooking bridge as the guard was obviously a fan. He was taking numerous photos resulting in cheers from the crowd alongside some highly bemused punters looking out of the other train windows!  

My other attendance was on the 5th of July 2022 where the pre-drinks and nibbles venue this time was Mackie Mayors. In the bowl, there are some seats set back in front of the stage, and I could hear my name being hollered repeatedly in the style of Dustin Hoffman in the Graduate. It turned out to be none other than my pal Ian ‘Milly’ Millington who was perched on the back row. I then navigated a route through the busy crowd to have a parlay, and my ascent resembled Pat Cash at the Centre Court at Wimbledon. Numerous punters asked me as I passed if I was Jimmy, before chortling to themselves!   

The Pat Cash clamber. Image Credit wimbledon.com

The support band were Slow Readers Club followed by the headliners Pixies. I decided for old times sake to drag my young 54 year old body into the vibrant mosh pit. One of the crew Tim accompanied me wearing his newly purchased Primark trainers that were in a sorry state by the end of the gig. There were appraising looks from one group of young whippersnappers due to my age before mosh pit etiquette was applied, and a respectful nod of the head was provided!