Tag: Amusement Parks on Fire

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!

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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.

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65 Days of Static. Image Credit blogspot.com

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 Venue 31 Night and Day – Part 2

My first visit to Night and Day Café was unusually to see a support band on 02/11/06. The band in question was the terrifically named post-rock outfit Amusement Parks on Fire from Nottingham. I had picked up on them via their second album Out of the Angeles with its distinctive sci-fi sleeve cover. They were a decent noisy live act with the venue only about a third full.

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Amusement Parks on Fire ‘Out of the Angeles’ album cover. Image Credit Discogs

For the main act Mumm Ra I recall there was a hugely overactive guitar tech thoroughly prepping the kit, unfortunately despite the odd moment the headliners were a tad limp and a bit twee for my tastes.

In May 2012 we headed in after another gig at the Soup Kitchen and caught a portion of Rooftop Runners set who were a Berlin based electronic combo comprising two Canadian brothers. We caught a further gig at Gulliver’s that night to complete a commendable trifecta. The following year we saw local act Egyptian Hip Hop who supported The Words.      

I also saw John Steele Singers, a non-descript six-piece from Brisbane in Australia and witnessed a decent fuzzy surf pop set called Get Inuit from Kent in 2015 as part of the Carefully Planned Festival.  

On a cold January night in January 2008 we decided ambitiously to do a double header of gigs which was deemed feasible by the virtue of Night and Day having later set times. So, after witnessing most of the Explosions in the Sky set at the Academy and additionally finding out North End had got an important victory over West Bromwich Albion, we jumped in a cab in true movie style and landed right on cue to see the much touted Glasvegas wander on stage.

The Glaswegians had a real presence about them, and this is surprisingly for me to say but on this occasion, they overcompensated with volume which resulted in them losing a degree of the subtlety of their self-titled debut album material. The song highlights on the night were ‘Geraldine’ and Stabbed’, the latter being a particularly dark heartfelt track.

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Glasvegas on stage. Image Credit GDR.

After the gig we ensconced to the bar and upon suddenly realising the late train was due we smuggled the remaining half bottles of Budvar out of the venue to accompany the walk back. Upon turning the corner to trot up the hill to Piccadilly station there was a young copper who on espying us had a big grin on his face due to the combined age of about 140 between the three of us. His opening riposte was ‘I am not going to have any trouble with you lads am I?’ to which he got three nods of assent and astutely asked us to lose the bottles at the bin 100 yards beyond him before we entered the station, a fine example of community policing if ever I saw one, so well done to him!   

On other visits I saw Low Island, an interesting Wrexham band called Gallops and an experimental project called Self Esteem consisting solely of Rebecca Lucy Taylor who was previously a member of Slow Club. I additionally saw Brad Stark and Seazoo, a quirky Welsh indie band. I witnessed a fine set from an Australian/Danish duo called Palace Winter who as a result of their quality I then made a conscious effort to see them in their own right a couple of years later.

It is now exactly a year to the day (13/03/20) since I saw my last gig of Nada Surf at Hop and Grape, which is naturally my longest ever gap between gigs. But there are now chinks of light on the horizon and I am hopeful of having my first vaccine soon. I have now started booking some gigs for later in the year which is very exciting!