Category: Manchester

Manchester Venues 118 to 120

A couple of months ago in February 2024 I undertook a solo Friday night foray into the city to attend a gig at the Manchester Yes venue.  I had noted prior to setting out that there was an additional performance taking place in the Manchester Yes Roof Terrace which tallied up as my third separate venue in that establishment.  So up the stairs I headed to the top floor to catch Keltio (Nassa) & Josh.

Manchester Yes Roof Terrace. Image Credit Manchester Evening News

On that same night, in a break between sets of the band I had gone to see, I sallied next door to pay a quick visit to Manchester Lass O Gowrie. I have previously paid a fulsome homage in an earlier blog to this venue, and I will not repeat myself here, but suffice to say I have an enduring affection for this venerable old public house. It has many original features and was named after the title of a poem scribed by Scottish poet Lady Caroline Nairne.

The one element I had missed was the opportunity to catch live music there. This omission was rectified on this night by a performance from Tom Fairview and also by earlier performances in February 2022 from the Blues Boys and Tom Mooney who all played towards the back of the pub near the entrance to the beer garden area. To square the circle the latter performance referenced was prior to attending a Nordic Giants show at the Pink Room venue in Yes.

So, one further tale pertaining to Lass O Gowrie if I may. One of my very learned Twitter muso contacts Cath Aubergine brought to my attention a remarkable and unexpected gig she attended there in 2012. There was apparently a monthly residency around that time run by Valentine Records called TAGO>MAGO>, at their final event they became aware of the fact that Damo Suzuki of Can fame was in the country and remarkably managed to persuade him to play a backstreet pub in Manchester.

Lass O Gowrie pub with the Yes venue in the foreground. Image Credit oxfordroadcorridor.com

In my previous Lass O Gowrie blog, I told the story of seeing the cast of Coronation Street in residence at the pub. This must have been a running theme as on the night of the Damo gig the cast of Waterloo Road had a bit of a do there and some of the crew were still in the venue when the gig took place.

When you reach the bottom of the steps adjacent to Manchester Oxford Road station you discover a triangle of pubs, The Salisbury, Thirsty Scholar and Manchester Grand Central. The latter named is a four-storey building located on Oxford Road directly opposite the Principal Hotel. The pub is placed within what was known in 1820 as ‘Little Ireland’, an exceedingly poverty hit slum area at that time. In 1900 the landlord Peter Bostock was listed as one of the licensees who were suspected of selling unadulterated beer which resulted in arsenic poising causing 70 deaths.

It has had many names over the years, Oxford Wine Bar, The Oxford, Schooner Inn, Cork & Screw, The Shady Lady and Beef & Barley (a Steak House). The current name was based on the proximity to the nearby station and a nod to the more well known New York train station. They used to have a club downstairs called Subway which closed in 2002 but there is current talk of possibly reopening it.  The pub was a regular stopping point for punters visiting prior to attending the now defunct Jillys Rockworld nightclub.

Grand Central pub. Image Credit myhospitalitysolutions.co.uk

The musical genre of the establishment is strictly in the rock/metal domain, similar to the Pub in Lancaster. They used to hold a Tuesday night Battle for Bloodstock event with local bands competing for a slot at the Bloodstock Metal Festival in Derby. Additionally, bands play free of charge on a Thursday though that seems to have thinned out in recent years.

I have attended three times, and they are all either before or after scheduled gigs at nearby venues. My first attendance was in November 2012 prior to a Tame Impala gig at the Ritz and the band on stage that night were called Gridlocked. I visited four months later and saw Deformation of Man from Sheffield and their heavy sound had them being hailed as the Steel City’s answer to Lamb of God. My final appearance was in July 2018 where I witnessed another noisy combo called Prometheus.

Manchester Venues 115 to 117

As cited in a previously blog, The Band on the Wall has recently been refurbished with a new site for gigs outside their main venue room, with an 80-person capacity. Thus, at the culmination of a gig I attended there recently we walked out into the Manchester Band on the Wall Bar and discovered a bonus band on the small stage called Black Cat Lion. I am assuming they only commenced playing when the band in the main room had finished their set.

Band on the Wall. Image Credit propermanchester.com

The last time I encountered an occurrence like that was when leaving Nottingham Rock City in the late 1990’s after watching a Spiritualised set to discover to my utter delight that the South London punks Snuff were in the middle of a thunderous set in a function room downstairs. That night I dived into the already fully functioning mosh pit and thoroughly enjoyed the half bonus gig and the standout was their cover of ‘I Think Were Alone Now’ with the vocals provided by a selected chap from the aforementioned pit!

Situated in a very old area of the Northern Quarter is Tariff St. I have also previously covered the bars and venues on this evocative ‘mill town’ thoroughfare, but I had never yet witnessed a gig at the Manchester Whiskey Jar Upstairs Bar, only having attended gigs in the downstairs space. The Whiskey Jar is housed in a Grade 1 listed textile mill, and it lives up to its name by having around 350 varieties of the hard stuff available, with representation from many continents.

Whiskey Jar bar. Image Credit creativetourist.com

On the same night of the above Band on the Wall gig I was navigating my route back to Manchester Piccadilly station for the late train home, and my attuned ears could hear music at ’100 yards’, much like Father Jack of Father Ted fame who could pick up the distinctive sound of a Sauvignon Blanc bottle at the same distance! Therefore, I had no choice but to undertake a quick detour into the Whiskey Bar to catch the last 1.5 songs of the Blues Kids set whilst still allowing enough time to enable myself to make the scheduled train without excessive scampering!

In November 2019 I attended at the last minute the Off the Record festival, an event for unsigned bands that takes place in a suite of venues in the Northern Quarter. I picked up my wristband from the hub venue of Gullivers about 6pm and decided to weave down Tib Street to my first venue. As I walked down I was distracted by a sign outside Manchester Matt & Phred’s.

Matt & Phred’s opened in its current format of a Jazz and Blues late night club in 2010 and holds live gigs 6 days a week. It has an appropriate low lit intimate setting with a 200 capacity and apparently provides fine cocktails and tasty pizzas. In its previous guise in 2007 Adele played two gigs there in a fortnight window and to have graced the stage there also are Rochdale’s Lisa Stansfield, Wynton Marsalis, Ed Harcourt, Mumford and Sons, Daniel Johnston and George Ezra.

Matt and Phreds. Image Credit DesignMyNight.com

Due to the genre of the music, I couldn’t see myself ever paying for and attending a gig there and had only once previously been in for a drink in an afternoon setting. However, returning to the previously mentioned sign outside which was providing an invite to attend a free early gig which happened to be at the exact point I was walking past.

Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth I entered the establishment and found a side wall to lean on. The act on stage were called Courteous Thief and transpired to be a folk singer who was a fisherman’s son from North Wales. He had already by that stage picked up support slots with Turin Brakes, Tom Hingley, Mark Morris and John Otway.