Tag: Abba

Lancaster Venues 29 to 31

I return this week to the ongoing review of the Lancaster Live Festival in October 2025. Our next port of call was Lancaster Dalton Square which is a public space that is located at the top end of town and is named after John Dalton, who built the area back in the 18th century. The previous occupants back in the 13th century housed a Dominican Friary there, while their church and cemetery are buried beneath the adjoining streets.

To the right resides Palatine Hall, which has had former lives of the Hippodrome variety hall, opera house, county cinema and catholic chapel, one might say they have certainly had their usage of that building. It is also overlooked by Lancaster Town Hall, and the centrepiece is the Queen Victoria monument donated to the city in 1907.

Dalton Square. Image Credit photonorth.co.uk

During the afternoon of our visit, they had some family friendly events on the square, and we caught a segment of the Milnthorpe Steel Band’s set. The band had an unusual derivation as it sparked from a steel band in London selling a small number of pans to a primary school teacher in Milnthorpe in Cumbria in 1996.

The enthusiasm of teacher Andy Whitfield then led to the creation of a school steel band, which evolved into a community group which was known colloquially as ‘Din in a Bin’. In 2005, the two combos joined together to form the band who play together today, and in 2016 they obtained charitable status. I have always loved the steel sound, and they were terrific fun and they played a festival friendly set by incorporating Coldplay and Abba covers.

In one corner of the square resides a rather impressive Grade 2 listed three storey Georgian building with Victorian frontage. It has previously been the Mayor of Lancaster’s house, a working men’s club and also the Blob Shop, but since 2006 it has been the home of the excellent award-winning Lancaster Borough public house. Those commendations include winning Lancaster’s best pub award in 2016, which is no mean achievement with the plethora of fine hostelries located in the city.

Lancaster Borough. Image Credit booking.com

The Horner family opened the establishment and undertook a major refurbishment in 2013 with the addition of fourteen en-suite bedrooms and their own purpose built brewery. They hold comedy nights on a Sunday, have a beer garden space at the rear and the venue can also be hired out for weddings and private functions. They are linked up with the nearby independent Dukes cinema, and they have a commendable environmental ethos including initiatives such as solar panels and their own purified tap water. 

When you enter you arrive initially in the pub space where they always have a fine selection of ales available and they also have received continuous CAMRA recognition. From there you reach a restaurant area where they serve terrific gastropub fare. Over the years we have had many excellent meals and have chosen it specifically for birthday visits, resulting in regularly leaving in a relaxed and replete state for the walk back to the station and the last train home.  

I have never been aware of any music being staged here but they made an exception for the festival. So, on the day in a very busy front room I saw a set by local singer/songwriter Molly Warburton.

A couple of minutes trot from there to Church Street brings you to Lancaster Mint Café Bar. This is a small cocktail bar that has been in play for a few years and opens until 2am at the weekends and they also have ‘Mint’ cards, I wonder if they are in spearmint or peppermint colours?!

Mint Cafe. Image Credit thingstodoinlancaster.co.uk

Apparently, a couple of years ago a few local students formed an inaugural Lancaster Cocktail society where they utilise Mint for their monthly cocktail society meetings. When we arrived, we discovered there was a mini stage inside the main door where a very personable acoustic singer called Olli Heath was performing. He was taking requests, but the shout outs were a tad commercial for me.

I am pleasantly surprised when I reflect that this blog has been running now for 6.5 years as I initially did not think it would have this longevity. As you may have deduced by now, I am an avid ‘statto’ and have periodically reflected that in my mind by comparing the blog numbers against other lengthy time span achievements i.e. highest individual test cricket scores.  

Thus, as this is my 333rd edition, I have married that up to Graham Gooch’s famous 10-hour 28 minutes innings of that very number in 1990 against India, a performance so renowned even a 333 model version of a cricket bat was created in his honour!

Gigs from Abroad Part 8 – Madeira

In late August 2022, we visited the island of Madeira for the first time, it has had an interesting history since it was first discovered and inhabited by the Portuguese in 1419. Their initial chief export was in the sugar industry, but this trade was eventually superseded by the infinitely more successful Madeira wine. They like many other countries sat under the auspices of the British empire before being returned to Portuguese rule in the 19th century.

They finally received their independence and autonomy on the 1st July 1976, and they are evidently proud of this status as they are mainly reliant on homemade produce with very few imported goods. One of these that I sampled regularly was their devilishly good pastries and cakes, especially their pastel de nata custard tarts! They even had a Cake of the Day at the hotel, now who could resist the comparison challenge set there! It was also refreshing to see that they served only the island brewed Coral beer.

Pastel de Nata cakes, don’t mind if I do! Image Credit My Gorgeous Recipes

The main town Funchal is an intriguing place to visit with its vibrant old town and keeps you fit via walking up some seriously steep hills. The island is the birthplace of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and he has an airport and a hotel named after him and a statue situated on Funchal harbour front.

We rode the scenic cable car up from the town to the top of Monte, but I did find it a challenge from a vertigo angle, so needed to find an alternate way to return down the hill. The toboggan was not running but the No 22 Bus was available. The subsequent bus ride turned out to be one of the highlights of the holiday as he literally flew down the hill round hairpin corners and woe betide anyone in his way, and then there was the dramatic braking to stop at the sporadic bus stops en route!  

On a musical front, we caught a singer called Sonia who was playing in Madeira Carlton Pestana Pub, which was located at the top of a particularly lung-busting incline. On the harbour front there was the Madeira Promenade Kiosk were a band called Kawana Pacha performed, and I recall them playing a rather dodgy Abba cover!

We were fortunate that whilst we were visiting the seventeen-day Madeira Wine Festival was taking place on the walkway of Avenida Arriaga in front of the Cathedral where you could sample many of the local vinos. On the night of our attendance the musical backdrop was provided by Sena Collective.

Mr Ronaldo and I. Image Credit Gill Crossthwaite

In the old town there was a terrific open market called Mercado Dos Lavradores where they had on display amongst many other items an extraordinary amount of vibrant looking chillies. Attached to the market was the Madeira Apuaza Café where we saw the Jazz Quarter play.  

If you turned left out of our hotel away from the town, this took you to the more hotel touristy area. One decent bar on this route was the Madeira Hole in One, where a local act Gustav was singing, and he performed a decent version of the archetypal ‘Quando Quando’.  

Further down this road brought you to a fine bar called Madeira Nos Copos Cocktail Bar. They have bands on there every night and to a sufficient demand that there is a makeshift stand outside the venue that we were too late to access. As a result, we grabbed a spot in the adjacent bar next door to watch a decent band called Hoje Para Animar.  

Our hotel room was up on the 13th floor and provided a fine view of the Madeira Carlton Pestana Pool Bar where wesaw a local singer called Gabrielle play a set including a commendable but somewhat extended loungecore version of ‘Wicked Game’ by Chris Isaak.   

The following evening from the exact same vantage point we could see over to the adjoining exclusive Madeira Reid’s Hotel. This viewpoint was now resembling a lite version of the flats overlooking Castlefield Bowl or Lytham Festival!

There was a wedding taking place and the singer was approaching the end of their set. Now you would surely in the circumstances expect happy ‘looking to the future’ tunes which made the choice of the penultimate song even more bizarre, as she then broke into the unmistakeable intro of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’!