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.