Category: Manchester

Manchester Venue 83 – Etihad Stadium

Nearby where we live now in south Manchester is the Fallowfield Loop which is an off-road cycling, walking and horse-riding path. It traverses the eight-mile route from Chorlton Cum Hardy metro station through Fallowfield, Levenshulme, Gorton and ends at the Ashton Canal, and I have cycled it many times. 

It runs down the old ‘Manchester Central Railway’ line which closed in 1988 and the ‘Friends of the Fallowfield Loop’ were instrumental in then converting it into the cycle route you see today. It is believed to be the longest urban cycleway in Britain.

A frosty Fallowfield Loop. Image Credit flickriver.com

During the pandemic, we decided to walk the lengthy route into town because there was quite frankly nothing else to do at that time! When the path reaches the canal, you can take a left turn and a couple of miles later you find yourself at the Etihad Campus, otherwise known as Sportcity. This is part of the continuation of the ongoing development of East Manchester and there is their own distinct metro stop attached to the complex which was opened in 2013.  

Within the same area you find the national cycling velodrome where I have attended a couple of times and seen cycling’s royalty, Laura and Jason Kenny in action and continually marvel at the astonishingly steep banking they have to navigate on the track!

The Campus is owned by Manchester City football club and contains the Manchester Etihad Stadium and City football academy. I have never attended in a football capacity as our paths seldom cross and I once also missed a famous 1-0 Preston North End win at City’s old ground at Maine Road in 1998 due to having a job interview early the next day.       

Adjacent to the complex, there is a current venture jointly run between Manchester City, LA developers, and the singer Harry Styles to build a Co-op Live stadium. This will become the UK’s largest live entertainment arena with a 23.5k capacity and there are plans to have around 120 live events annually staged there.

The project has an eyewatering cost of £365m and is due to open in 2024. Whether there is scope for two huge auditoriums in the city with the Manchester Arena situated about three miles away remains to be seen, or will it subsequently result in them becoming competitors to each other?  

The Etihad Stadium was originally built to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the following year Manchester City made their home there and it has played host to a variety of sporting events in the intervening years. The stadium capacity is 53,400 but increases to 60,000 for gigs (by utilising the pitch area) which take place during the summer months. The first concert there was the Red Hot Chilli Peppers supported by James Brown in 2004 and in 2011 Take That played eight nights with tickets sales of over 400k for the duration.  

Manchester Etihad Stadium. Image Credit traveldigg.com

We had previously seen AC/DC twice at Manchester Arena and Glasgow Hampden Park and decided to witness them again in 2016. In between purchasing the tickets and the date of the show the lead singer Brian Johnson had to pull out with the very valid excuse of hearing loss. Remarkably he has since gone through experimental treatment to restore his hearing and is now back performing again.

It was announced that somewhat bizarrely he would be replaced by the Guns and Roses lead singer Axl Rose. Following that news, we hummed and hawed whether to claim a refund but subsequently went past the deadline, so we had no choice but to attend.

On the night Uncle George, John and Paul Dewhurst met in Monroes near Piccadilly Station for a couple of scoops before diving onto the metro. Upon alighting we were met by all the considerable food and amenities surrounding the complex and then headed up to our seats at the back of the stadium. 

Now, Axl Rose has a considerable reputation for being a prickly customer and arriving on stage at very very late hours. Thankfully, on the day he played it with a very straight bat perhaps helped in part by the fact that one of his feet was in plaster due to a recent accident. As a result of Brian’s absence AC/DC were not in the same league as previous performances but admittedly it was not as bad as I feared it could be, and they had some inspirational moments, with ‘Highway to Hell’ being a personal favourite on the night.   

There was one particular blissed out punter directly in front of us who was having the time of his life and danced throughout the whole performance. The metro was packed so we followed the crowds by walking back into the town via the canals in the regenerated area of New Islington.

We were at that point in time in advanced preparation for relocating to Manchester but had already decided on a location in the suburbs and written off moving into the city centre, which could well have been a more viable option for us if we had been twenty years younger!

Manchester Venue 82 – The Castle Hotel

The Manchester Castle Hotel located at the top end of Oldham Street was built in the late 18th century and began trading as a public house in 1816 and it is estimated the grand olde world interior complete with Victorian tiles and mosaic floor dates as far back as 1897. It has had many previous monikers including The Crown and Sceptre, The Crown and Anchor and The Clock Face.

Manchester Castle Hotel. Image Credit Flickr.

There has always been a musical ethos within the pub incorporating the involvement of John McBeith who went on to launch the Roadhouse venue, fondly remembered by me as being the first venue I ever saw Mogwai. The Castle was also the site of a famous John Peel interview with Ian Curtis in 1979 and Fall’s Mark E Smith also chose the pub as a meeting point for some of his abrasive monologue interviews.

The pub fell on tough times and closed in 2008, before subsequently being refurbished and reopened with a linkage to its sister pub Gulliver’s across the road and has gone from strength to strength since that date.

Despite being a fairly small hostelry, they have incorporated an eighty-capacity venue off the corridor to the rear of the pub. Facing the small door entrance is the mixing desk and the stage is to the right, and I must say it is one of the most cramped areas I have encountered when a gig is sold out!

I have attended eleven gigs in total with only the first one being where I have paid a singular ticket to see the band, the others being part of other multi wrist band events such as Carefully Planned and Dot to Dot Festivals.

Thus, on 23/10/11 I saw Veronica Falls who were a four-piece formed in London in 2009. They formed from previous bands The Royal We and Sexy Kids and are still active though sadly their drummer Patrick Doyle died in 2018. They first came to my attention via their excellent debut single ‘Love in a Graveyard’ which was a combination of C86 meets the Raveonettes, and they were good fun in a live setting.   

Veronica Falls. Image Credit Clash

Three years later, Space Blood were in town, a two piece slightly jokey instrumental combo from Chicago and I would place them in the math rock vein, and they have a couple of albums on the books. The following year I witnessed bands called Face, Georgio Tuna  and The Stay Aways, an all-female four piece based in Brighton and London. 

In 2017 I saw a young rapper called Tobi Sunmola from Nigeria, who moved from the country of his birth at the age of 17 and is now living in Manchester. The following year I saw Grand Prix and Thyla, the latter being a four-piece dream pop band who all met while attending university in Brighton. When one of their original guitarists departed in 2021, they decided to call it quits and their final ever gig was at the Hope and Ruin in Brighton on 25/05/22.

In May 2019 I saw another four-piece band called SUN SILVA who initially got together whilst at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Six months later I witnessed Winnie and the Rockettes, a funk and soul band who have supported Chaka Khan and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and have also headlined the famous Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. My latest and only post-Covid visit thus far was in April 22 to see a Manchester band called Another Country $$$$.