Category: Liverpool

Liverpool Venues 5 to 7

Before I outline the remaining events I have thus far attended in Liverpool, I wanted to provide some detail of all the missed gig opportunities on the other side of the River Mersey from the city centre. The first occurred when I attended my auntie’s wedding somewhere deep in Wallasey territory and there was a pub opposite the wedding reception building, but the name of the establishment evades me now. We visited briefly during the day but only Uncle George grasped the mantle to attend at one point in the evening where there was a band playing.

Following on from that quarter information tale, in July 21, Gill and I were scheduled to attend the Lets Rock 80’s festival at Wavertree Playing Fields (aka the Mystery). The derivation of the mystery moniker is down to the fact that the 104-acre park was donated to the Liverpool corporation by an anonymous well-wisher who subsequently transpired to be a shipping magnet. We were planning to commute in from the local nattily named Wavertree Technology Park train station but in the end, circumstances dictated we could not attend resulting in missing out of the dubious privilege of watching Sister Sledge, Odyssey, Wet Wet Wet and Adam Ant!  

Adam Ant. Image Credit thecurrent.org

I have previously attended gigs at library venues in Lancaster and Wigan and was hoping to tick Birkenhead off this list when we obtained tickets to see the French band Juniore for a chilled Sunday afternoon set, but it was subsequently cancelled and not rearranged due to issues with post-Brexit visa issues and Covid.

Another interesting sounding venue in that area is the Future Yard in Birkenhead. One of my favourite ever bands Sennen were undertaking a very rare tour and had added a date at that very venue. Unfortunately, I had a fixture clash and could not attend, and despite my exhortations to the band they didn’t add a Manchester date, so I have not yet added to my sole sighting of them at Manchester Night and Day in 2010.

Thus, I shall now move away from the hard luck stories onto actual gigs attended. One day in December 2019 I was working out of the Liverpool office and gravitating back down Liverpool Church Street to Lime Street station for my train home. I heard the unmistakable sound of a full band playing a street gig, the combo in question was Keywest.

Keywest band. Image Credit wordpress.com

Keywest are a four-piece folk band from Ireland and their route to success is an unusual one as they learnt and honed their craft by years of busking in the hot bed area of Grafton Street in Dublin. They had obviously decided to take a trip down memory lane by performing on a busy shopping street, I don’t whether that proceeded a gig in a more standard venue that evening.

On Matthew Street, you will find Liverpool Sgt Pepper’s Bar, like many in the area a Beatles themed establishment and the website informs that improbably and in fact impossibly they have music on ‘8 days a week’! In 2017 I caught a chap called John McDonna playing a set there.

In December 2021, I was over in Liverpool for an overnight work event and therefore naturally had to have a gander at the Ents 24 website to see if there were any musical events of note that coincided with my stay, thus discovering there was an interesting act on that very night at Liverpool EBGBS.

After work, we grabbed some tea in the Silk Road tapas and after a couple of drinks persuaded my colleague David Taylor to also attend the gig. David had previously pleasantly surprised me when he stated unexpectedly that he had not only heard of Mogwai but had actually seen them live which was good enough for me!

Heebies Jeebies (known locally as Heebies) has been a popular venue on Seel Street since it first incarnation as a jazz bar in the mid 90’s. In 2016 they opened the 250-year-old basement room as a live and club night venue and named it EBGBS.  Upon entering the establishment, I noted they had nailed the intended vibe as a dingy downstairs biker bar, in a good way! It reminded me of the Merchants pub near Lancaster train station.

EBGB’s dungeon setting! Image Credit architectural-emporium.co.uk

The venue has a capacity of 300 but there cannot have been more than fifty people in attendance that night, I can imagine when the place is full the view of the stage may be impaired due to the numerous pillars in place.

The support band was a post punk band from Oslo in Norway called Mayflower Madame, the main act was New Candys from Venice in Italy. Since their formation in 2008, their singer Fernando Nuti remains their ever-present member. In their early days they had support slots with the likes of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Crystal Stilts.

Their second album was recorded by John Willis, producer, and drummer of legendary psych rock band Loop, who coincidentally I am off to see today (21/05/23) on their comeback tour, 33.33 years since I last saw them at Manchester International 1 in January 1990. New Candys provided an enjoyable slab of gentle shoegaze before we headed back down the vibrant Seel Street, which looked worthy of further investigation at some future stage.      

Liverpool Venue 4 – L2

On the November 2001 Mogwai British tour there were rather unusually for them no Manchester dates scheduled, thus plans were hatched to watch them in Wolverhampton and the following week in Liverpool. So, on Friday 09/11/01 we boarded the Northern Ivor the Engine express to Liverpool Lime Street.

John Dewhurst and I deposited our overnights bags at our accommodation and proceeded to have a sally around a few Liverpool bars with Uncle George joining up with us later after he had finished his work shift. When meandering down Matthew Street I unexpectedly heard the hollering of my name, which always throws you when you are out of town. The source of the shouting was a mate from Preston called Pete Lester whose latest band Bridge were playing the famous Cavern that very evening.

We joined him for a bevy in the said venue, whilst perusing the tiny old stage where the young Beatles played, before checking out the back room where a more modern stage had now been erected.  In the final pub before the gig, we were subject to some barracking from a group of Everton fans regarding our status as Preston fans. In retrospect, this all seemed highly ironic when six months later they came to poach our young manager, David Moyes!

Liverpool Cavern. Image Credit thousandwonders.net

The venue that night was Liverpool L2, situated on Hotham Street.It latterly changed its name to Carling Academy and then O2 Academy. There are two halls with respective capacities of 1200 and 500 and I am not sure which one we attended, but more likely to be the smaller one at that point of Mogwai’s career. The venue had a decent pedigree as within the couple of years preceding my visit Mercury Rev, Moby, Flaming Lips, Travis and Muse supported by Coldplay graced the stage there.

My brother was also in attendance at the gig whilst visiting friends in Southport and was aiming to surprise me, but we ended up missed it each other!

I have given this some thought and stand by the assertion that this remains my favourite ever Mogwai performance. It wasn’t the noisiest I have seen them as that would be surpassed by Glasgow and Sheffield gigs, but it was the fact that the sound was so crystal even the quiet elements were loud. It was further assisted by an excellent relaxed venue and their choice of set list and as ever at that stage they finished with their twenty minute ‘hymn’, ‘My Father My King’.

Post-gig, we considered going to the cavernous Krazyhouse nightclub, but deferred on that option, subsequently visiting the club for my only appearance a couple of years later.  Our preferred alternate was to purloin some supper in China Town.

Liverpool Krazyhouse nightclub. Image Credit Liverpool Echo

When walking back to our hotel, a young chap pulled up in a car next to us. It became instantly obvious he was stoned up to the eyeballs and was babbling incoherently to us before driving off. We allowed him a very safe distance before we set off again!   

Our digs were the Campanile hotel on the docks, a somewhat dubious establishment, where we got very little sleep due to the noise levels of other residents. So, the morning dawned finding us hungover and dehydrated, a trio of bumbling nodders traversing back to the station.

On arrival, our dilapidated states were not helped by the fire alarm going off and an evangelist punter who approached us and coined phrases such as ‘you can’t be a winner if you are a sinner’. I had no energy to compose a cutting riposte and thankfully my withering look served to keep him at bay!    

When we landed back in Preston, we refuelled with a couple of pints and a homemade curry in the Welly pub on Glovers Court before heading home for some much-needed sleep.