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Preston Venue 26 – 53 Degrees Club Part 1

Following the closure of the old Preston Polytechnic venue back in the 90’s it took a fair period of time before a new venue was incorporated into the updated University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN).

On the original site on Fylde Road the new £6.5million venue 53 Degrees was launched in 2005, with the first gig being an AC/DC tribute band and the first proper band was a very young Subways. The venue closed in 2015 with the final gig responsibility being given to the Inspiral Carpets.

There were two separate halls, the main downstairs venue with a capacity of 1500 but in this particular blog, I am going to concentrate on the Preston 53 Degrees Club venue located upstairs with a capacity of 400.

Access was gained from the rear of the building up a flight of stairs that dropped you into a corridor reminiscent of Manchester Hop & Grape. The doorway to the left took you into the venue with bar opposite and the stage down to the right. It was a fairly intimate venue but was located in a thin level room which made viewing a challenge when it was heavily populated. The beer as at many venues was of a pretty foul quality.

I have witnessed 15 gigs there in total and my first foray there was in June 2006 to see a full roster of bands. First up were the Architects followed Komakino, a five-piece band from Derby who were a regular support band at that stage to the likes of Bloc Party and the Editors. They subsequently split up in 2008.

The main support was Love Ends Disaster! formed whilst at University in Loughborough and Nottingham. They were a decent live act and a couple of years later were receiving airplay from the likes of Colin Murray and Huw Stephens on Radio 1, when I saw them again at the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham. They subsequently disbanded in 2012.

The headline act was Cooper Temple Clause hailing from Wokingham and their first two albums in 2002/2003 received some considerable acclaim. I would put them in the post-hardcore mould, and they created a fine clattering racket!

See the source image — Cooper Temple Clause. Image Credit YouTube.

My second visit there was on a Bank Holiday Sunday on 06/05/07 following attending Preston North End’s last game of the season where we beat Birmingham 1-0 but just missed out on the play-offs by a single point, probably a blessing in disguise!

The band on show was Mumm-Ra who I had witnessed the year before when I went to see Amusement Parks on Fire at Manchester Night and Day. They were a tad fey and lightweight for my tastes.

Three days later I went to see 65 Days of Static who I had first picked up on via their multiple inclusion in John Peel’s Festive Fifty off their 2004 debut album ‘The Fall of Math’. They are in the post rock genre but with a more electronic bent and emanate from Sheffield and are still now ploughing their trade.

They have always been good value live and were supported by Josh T Pearson from Texas who was previously in the lauded Lift to Experience. He was performed as a solo act at this time and was a slightly odd act as his singing was more in the vein of a stream of consciousness!

On 26/09/07 I went to see one of the perennial stalwarts of the last 20 years Idlewild who as ever were consistently good. They were supported by Twilight Sad who are a fellow Scottish post punk shoegaze band and they had only just released their debut album on Mogwai’s label Rock Action Records. They had a fearsome live reputation and they lived up to that mantle as a thunderously loud act.

Manchester Venues 27 to 30

Not to be outflanked by their Manchester counterparts the good folk of Salford set up their own festival in 2010 and uniquely called it Sounds from the Other City (SFTOC) and it took over many diverse venues in and around the A6 near to Salford Central train station. I have counted the following venues under the Manchester banner due to their postcodes.

On our first visit in May 2012, we arrived via Salford Crescent Station as there were more speedy trains to that location. The Crescent station only has two platforms but occasionally there is a delightful occurrence of the station announcer excitedly exclaiming ‘Platform Change, Platform Change’ which only in reality necessitates a step forward or backwards to reach the new location! We had only once previously had a couple of drinks around that area in December 2000 prior to watching AC/DC at the MEN Arena.

I have attended three separate SFOTC’s in total and they have always been superbly run chilled events. The central hub for the tickets has been an old industrial building called Islington Mill which is a gig and arts venue with rehearsal rooms within. There is a specific small gig room which in that first year I saw a band called the ABC Club. On a later visit to SFOTC in 2017 I saw Torn Sail, a psychedelic folk-rock band who had the legendary Mark Lanegan contributing to their debut album.

Outside of the festival, we saw Joanne Gruesome there on 18/09/15. They were a five-piece punky band from Cardiff who had modelled their name somewhat bizarrely on musician Joanne Newsom. They were sporadically excellent live in a very intimate setting and I recall the guitarist always facing away from the stage. We had a commendable sally around the local hostelries pre and post gig including a couple of jars in the New Oxford with its array of real ales and were chatting to a couple of punters who travelled all the way across Manchester every Friday to visit the pub.

Down the corridor from the Club room was the Islington Mill Gallery where in 2018 we saw songwriter Claire Wells perform. Outside the back of the building was a large courtyard area where there was a plethora of food options available including appetising looking pizzas. In the corner was a balcony stage called the Engine House where an acoustic duo with a jolly name of White Death were performing.

Our first venue visited at the festival in 2012 was the outermost venue down the A6 away from town, namely The Crescent public house. It was a proper old-fashioned boozer with a distinctive green frontage and a cracking pint of Barnsley bitter on tap. It had a long heritage as it was built in the 1860’s and was a Grade 2 listing building and featured in the good Beer Guide for a sustained period of 25 years. Allegedly Karl Marx and Frederick Engels used to sup in there as they formulated communist principles in the 19^th century. The pub sadly closed about five years ago.

The bands played in a very small dark room at the back of the establishment which couldn’t cope with more than 20 people enclosed within.

The first band on were a local act Heroin Diet who produced a 25-minute bracing slab of amusing hardcore punk. The set curtailed about 5pm on an extremely sunny day so we walked out with ringing ears and squinting like a vampire, thereby creating an interesting start to the day! We returned later to catch sets by an interesting Manchester post rock outfit Dead Sea Apes and a uniquely named 100% Beefcock and the Titsburster, though I cannot remember anything about them bar their name!

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