Tag: Arctic Monkeys

Preston Venue 60 The Ferret – Part 4

The stage in the Preston Ferret is immediately to your right as you enter the building prior to accessing the bar. There are stairs taking you upstairs to the loos and there is a standing capacity of around 200 and you normally have an excellent unrestricted view of the bands from wherever you positioned, even when it is packed. The stage was originally placed to the left before being moved and my personal preference was its first positioning as it felt to me to be a more aesthetically pleasing lay out as it was further from the entrance door, but that is just my humble opinion.

The current stage position. Image Credit blogpreston.co.uk

In June 2015 after a long emotional day at my Uncle Danny’s funeral we sought some musical solace and the first act was a terrific post rock band from Guadalajara called Polar Dream, a lazy journalistic term could be to quantify them as a ‘Mexican Mogwai’, though they additionally incorporate drone, Latin, Indian and Turkish shades into their mix.  The South American theme continued with the intriguing atmospheric guitar shades of Fauno, a forward-thinking band who were a key influencer in the music scene in Brazil.

My final gig visit of 2015 was to see Bobbie Peru again with the other band being Pete Bentham and The Dinner Ladies. The latter are an art punk ‘Kitchencore’ combo with the Dinnerettes (Peggy Bread and Patti Cakes) in their ranks and idiosyncratic song titles such as Sensitive Lorry Drivers, Rude Statues and Goth Postmen. In February 2016 I caught a band called Young Recreation.

Polar Dream. Image Credit gigseekr.com

A couple of months later, I saw Flight of Arrows who are a four piece whose members are split between Preston and Sheffield. They had performed at Kendal Calling and bagged support spots with the Strypes and 1975.

The headline act was Vyrll Society from Liverpool who formed in 2013 and were originally named Dirty Rivers. They were highly touted but from a personal viewpoint they left me a bit cold. A couple of years later they released their anticipated debut album ‘Course of the Satellite’ containing the single ‘Andrei Rublev’ in a cultural nod to the famous Russian painter and not the tennis player with an almost identical name! That coincided with headlining a UK tour culminating in a sold-out hometown gig. It came as a surprise then that shortly after the front man Michael Ellis called it quits citing the old chestnut of ‘creative differences’, it is unclear whether the band is still operational.

Vyrll Society. Image Credit dansendeberen.be

 In June 2016 my next appearance featured the band Jordan Allen, who started out as a solo artist. They had an Arctic Monkeys feel about them and a couple of years later they had the privilege of playing at the historic St Johns Minster in the city alongside the Sherlocks.

Later that year I witnessed a rather good math rock outfit called Chiyoda Ku. The band members initially met at the age of 16 at the Academy of Music and Sound in Exeter and honed their live craft at the Stag and Hounds in Bristol. The venue actively encouraged and provided a platform for the more musically obtuse bands, possibly due to its proximity to the ArcTanGent festival site at Fernhill Farm on the outskirts of the city. My next appearance was three months later where I saw local artists Notes and Donnie Williams.

My forty second and as it stands currently my latest visit was in August 2017, a month before we relocated to Manchester. Appropriately it was a full bill and commenced with The Kut (known as Princess Maha) who is a gritty London based multi-instrumentalist. Her musical career commenced in 2005 and she had a very gradual rise through the ranks starting with appearances at the London Olympic and Paralympic games in 2012.

In November 2020 she had a speculative shot for a Christmas No 1 single with ‘Waiting for Christmas’ in aid of Red Cross, where she eventually reached No 10. The success continued with her second album GRIT which achieved a No 1 position in the Official UK Rock Album chart. 

Next up was Black Mamba, a heavy metal band based in the city. They were followed by Blackpool band Sin Circus, spearheaded by singer Vicky Spencer who subsequently released their debut album VII during the pandemic all based around the theme of the Seven Deadly Sins. The headline act was another local rock combo called Twisted Obsession who were in the Metallica mould.

So, this completes my review of the 60 Preston venues I have visited thus far, until I find some new ones to frequent!

Other British Gigs 3 and 4

I managed to catch Mogwai three times in the 2006 calendar year as I saw them in Edinburgh and London. The third strand of that trilogy was the last date of a short British tour which took place at Sheffield Plug on 07/04/06. My attendance of the event was in doubt until the last minute as I was a tad under the weather, but generally nothing would stand in my way of attending Mogwai gigs!

Thus, a train was boarded by Uncle George and I on the Friday afternoon via Manchester into Sheffield. John Dewhurst was not in attendance as the birth of his son Joe was imminent, frighteningly Joe is now aged 16 and just about to commence his first apprenticeship.

It was my virgin trip into the steel city, and I have always aspired one day to attend the World Snooker at the Crucible Theatre. Linked to that, I have a pal called Dave Dyson whose one of his claims to fame is that he was in attendance in 1983 when Cliff Thorburn famously made the first televised 147 break at the World Championships.

We had a quick foray into the bookies as it was Ladies Day at the Grand National meeting and we found a 33-1 winner which set us up in good stead for the day. We had a mulch around a couple of pubs before heading over to the venue located on 14-16 Matilda Street.

The club first opened in 2005 and modelled itself as a live music and club night venue opening to 6am at the weekends. Local luminaries Arctic Monkeys and the Prodigy have played there. It was also an award winner in the Club Bar None Awards in 2014.

The venue subsequently closed just before the pandemic struck. However, there are green shoots of recovery evident as the record shop Record Junkee, which sits opposite, are planning to reopen the establishment under the name Network and reinstate gigs and club nights there.  There are also plans for a bowling alley, drinking and dining area to be located in the original Plug car park.

The Sheffield Plug. Image Credit sheffieldhistory.co.uk

I recall the venue being down in the basement and it contained a very low roof in the style of the old International 1 in Manchester. As a result, it was the loudest Mogwai performance I have ever witnessed, and they do set a very high bar in that regard. There were literally people with hands over their ears at certain points during the set.     

The bands choice of the last three tracks contributed to this cacophony, being namely ‘2 Rights Make 1 Wrong’, We’re No Here’ and ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’.  We spent the return journey on the Saturday, trying without success to identify the winner of the National that afternoon.

On one weekend when I was visiting my brother in Nottingham in July 2008, he mentioned there was a festival that a friend’s band was participating in on the Sunday. So, I agreed to provide a lift there for him as it was on my route of travelling back to Preston.

The event was the Belper Music Festival though I can find scant details when I searched, so I don’t know whether it was only in existence for a short period of time. It took place on the narrow streets of the town and as it encompassed a bonus new venue I obviously had to stick around and watch a couple of acts! Thus, on a small stage on the main drag I saw two local bands, namely Moscow Straits and the Re-enactments.

Two postscripts from me if I may, I have just heard the brutally sad news of Mimi Parker of Low’s untimely death from evil ovarian cancer. I shall always the treasure the few times I saw them live and the heavenly harmonies they created. We shall always have ‘Just Like Christmas’, which is our Christmas present opening song on Christmas morning.

Mimi Parker of Low. Image Credit www.acclaimedmusic.net

The other element is that I have finally reached 100k words in my blog, a future book at some stage methinks. What was the profound 100,000th word I hear you say? Could it be ‘the’ or ‘but’? Well, it actually somewhat appropriately turned out to be ‘Manchester’!