Category: Manchester

Manchester Venue 87 Albert Hall – Part 2

One of the undeniable quirks of Albert Hall is the sheer size of the building and the multiple floors. A case in point is the extraordinary distance to access the lavatories which are situated in a veritable Bermuda Triangle maze of corridors in the basement, where it is rather easy to lose your bearings!

On 17/05/14 I recall us having a chippy tea on Cross Street and then watching the end of the FA Cup final between Arsenal and Hull which the former team won in extra time, before heading down to Manchester Albert Hall to watch the enigmatic Neutral Milk Hotel.

I had first discovered the band years after their breakup via reading an annual review pamphlet distributed by Piccadilly Records which listed them in several subscribers influential list. They hailed from Louisiana and their driving force was Jeff Mangum and their initial period of existence was from 1989 to 1998 before reforming for a couple of years in 2013.  

Their popularity in their initial phase resulting in them dropping off the map and heading into a hiatus and Jeff becoming a virtual recluse. Their music is ‘marmite’ to many punters, as it contains many unusual instruments such as a singing saw, uilleann pipes and the lesser spotted ‘zanzithophone’ which translates as a Casio digital horn. It also contains strange otherworldly lyrics, and they were cited as a resultant huge influence on bands that followed such as Arcade Fire and the Decemberists.  

My view on their landmark second album ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ is that is idiosyncratic, life affirming but also in equal parts deeply unsettling. It was fascinating to hear it converted to a live setting and some of their tracks had moments of genius about them.

Neutral Milk Hotel’s unique album cover. Image Credit Pinterest.

Because they had literally disappeared for such a sustained period and gained a degree of mythical status, many of their fans in the interim had developed into ardent zealots of their art, to the point that Uncle George observed on the evening that it felt a tad ‘insidious’. It was all in all a fascinating evening and the resultant people watch was almost as entertaining as the band.       

The following June I saw the ever-excellent Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for the fifth time with my personal favourite being when they astonishingly played five minutes’ walk away from where I lived in a small club in Preston called the Mill.

It was a glorious summers evening and despite being in an indoor venue the sun was angling through the many decorative windows to provide an elegant backdrop to their performance on stage. The band revel in long performances, quite often over two hours and flip consummately between straight up rock tracks like ‘Whatever Happened to my Rock N Roll (Punk Song)’ to countrified acoustic tracks such as ‘Complicated Situation’. They were in fantastic form on the evening and all things combined it resulted in becoming my gig of the year for 2015.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Image Credit myfreewallpapers.net

My next visit was as part of the Dot-to-Dot festival roster in 2018. To add to the many things Covid was responsible for is the fact that it sadly cancelled the Manchester leg of the Dot-to-Dot event, and it is now only held in Bristol and Nottingham. I really miss this event as it provided a great opportunity to visit some more obscure venues and also achieve some serious steps totals as it encompasses venues all across the city in one day!   

The other unusual element it allowed was to visit venues during daylight hours when they are at times virtually deserted which is slightly disconcerting as you are so used to venues being busy just prior to an evening show. The band on stage were No Hot Ashes from Stockport who had been receiving some hype locally but for me they didn’t justify it. The following year they released their only album ‘Hardship Starship’ and in 2020 decided to take an unspecified hiatus but Covid intervened again to cancel forever their two planned farewell shows.

In 2019 I saw Suede for the first time, and I have always been a tad ambivalent about the music but many gigs I have attended in the last five years are because we are now just down the road from Manchester, so why the hell not! Brett Anderson remains quite an engaging front man and they put on a decent performance without really moving me. I was left with the conundrum afterwards of whether I respected him or not for having the temerity to still wear tight leather pants at his age!

Manchester Venues 86 to 87 Albert Hall – Part 1

One of the more recent additions to the venues in the city is Manchester Albert Hall, however it does have a significantly long back story. The site on Peter Street was originally the New Jerusalem Church during the 18th and 19th centuries before the Albert Hall we now recognise was designed as the Manchester and Salford Wesleyan Mission in 1910.

It is a huge building cut across four floors and one of its early functions was to stage ‘Peoples Concerts’ so was an early forerunner as a music venue! It was also a forum for people rallies and Winston Churchill famously delivered an oratory there in 1950.

The top two floors remained unused from 1969 before the Trof group, who own various pubs and venues in the area, bought the site in 2012. They commenced the restorative work of the highly ornate building and first began to stage concerts in 2013 with the official opening the following year.   

The music space on the upper floors has a Gormenghast Gothic vibe with coloured glass rooflights, and they thankfully decided to retain the original organ. The capacity is 2000 with a large standing area downstairs and a seated viewing area on the floor above.

The ground floor space was originally a car showroom before morphing into Brannigans nightclub in the 90’s replete with the uniquely coloured tile dancefloor. Following the Trof purchase it became a Bavarian style beerhaus called Manchester Albert Schloss with its own separate entrance from Peter Street.

Brannigans nightclub. Image Credit blogspot.com

The word schloss translates as ‘a castle, palace or manor house, built as a retreat for recreation, indulgence, pleasure and debauchery’ which sounds like an intriguing place to visit! The Albert element derives back to Queen Victoria who when grieving her husband named many buildings across the country in his honour. The Manchester branch opened in 2015 and has since been followed by the introduction of other sister venues in Birmingham and Liverpool.

It is a large vibrant pub with decent food and a plethora of continental lagers to wash it down with. The renowned food critic Jay Rayner has been a keen advocate of the venue, so much so he returned with his jazz band to play a set on the small stage. My one gig there was to see the Albert Schloss house band play in 2018.

Returning to the main Albert Hall, I have attended 18 gigs there which puts it in eighth place on my most visited venue list, which shows the metronomic regularity of my appearances as the venue has only just celebrated its tenth anniversary.  

Manchester Albert Hall. Image Credit blogspot.com

My first attendance was shortly after the hall opened in 2013 when somewhat unsurprisingly, I went to see Mogwai. However, it was not a standard Mogwai performance as they were undertaking a tour to premiere their soundtrack of the Zidane movie. The film utilised many camera angles to cover the whole 90-minute performance of the French footballer Zinedine Zidane and the band provided segments of background sound in between the quieter moments where the only noise that can be heard is emanating from the crowd in attendance at the match.

Even if you are not a football fan, it is an engrossing watch and more reminiscent of an art movie, after the film had finished, they played a few further tunes. For the one and only time I was in the upper seats, and it was an extremely hot day so were melting in the auditorium. I recall chatting to John Robb afterwards about the upcoming PNE v Blackpool match and Uncle George and I being interviewed by a student magazine about the event we had just witnessed.

Mogwai on Albert Hall stage on Zidane tour. Image Credit pinterest.com

Mogwai must have taken a liking to the venue as they returned for two shows (over three nights) in 2018 which I attended, the first one as a solo outing and only by virtue of obtaining a spare ticket the day before the event. They undertook another double header in February this year over consecutive nights, Gill finally managing to catch them on the first night. The second show on the Friday where they played ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’ for the first time on the tour, was sold out and extraordinarily busy.