Liverpool Venues 8 to 10

The city of Liverpool, much like Manchester excels itself in retaining the grand architecture of vintage buildings. Meeting this particular criteria, Liverpool Old Bank public house on James Street down near the waterfront was originally the National Bank built in 1920. When it reopened as a hostelry it retained the American style ornate grandeur including the original tiled floors and high ceilings. It initially opened under the First National Bar name before morphing into the Old Bank in 2018.

Liverpool Old Bank. Image Credit theoldbankliverpool.co.uk

It contains a large bespoke bar on the ground floor with a smaller mezzanine bar in the upstairs area and it was on this upper deck that a group of us gathered for my pal Joe Glenny’s leaving do in November 2023 as he was jetting off for a career break in Australia. Whilst we were in residence there was a posse of acoustic musicians playing on a small stage downstairs.

I managed to glean one of the performer’s names so can record I saw a singer called Aidan play there. I did subsequently notify Joe a few months later that Mogwai were playing in Sydney when he was in residence there, but he shamefully missed attending the gig, there’s just no helping some people!

On a separate occasion, I was pottering around near Central station, as you do, and on Ranelagh Street chanced upon Liverpool Ranelagh’s Tavern. It is a ten a penny Irish theme bar and there was a singer called Seamus yodelling away in the corner.

Ranelagh’s Tavern. Image Credit ranelaghs.co.uk

Liverpool naturally exploits their hometown history with the Beatles and there are a plethora of bars paying homage to the band down Mathew Street and the most famous of them all is the Cavern Club where they played many of their early gigs.

In fact, between the 9th of February 1961 and the 3rd of August 1963 they performed there 292 times, and they were initially billed as deriving from Hamburg. They were surpassed only by the Hideaways who followed them as the resident house band who played over 400 gigs and were thus rewarded with their name being included on the wall of fame.

The Cavern opened its doors in 1957 as a jazz club with its driving force being a local chap called Alan Synter who found a cellar space which was being used at that stage as a tropical fruit warehouse and prior to that a World War II air raid shelter. It is said that when the club was at full capacity, the heat resulted in a sweet fruity smell emanating from the walls, which then became locally known as the ‘Cavern Perfume’. 

The club then moved on to embrace the mood of the day and rebadged itself as a Merseybeat venue. Bands who played there in that period include Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Black Sabbath, Queen and the Who and the local lass Cilla Black was employed there as a hat-check girl.

The Beatles on stage at the Cavern Club. Image Credit beatlesbible.com

Its history then became a little complicated when it closed in 1973 to make way for a ventilation shaft for the new Merseyrail underground railway. That however was never completed, and the site then turned into a car park. There were plans to reopen it in 1982, but it was identified that it was structurally impossible to do so. Many of the bricks from the original cellar were then sold to raise funds for the Strawberry Fields Children’s home.

At a 90-degree angle across the road, they decided to build a new Cavern which was recreated as much as they could in its original image. The initial owner was the former Liverpool football player Tommy Smith, but it closed again in December 1989 when it lost its licence following a vicious assault on a customer resulting in imprisonment for those involved.  

In July 1991 three friends reopened it and still run the club today. A chap called Paul McCartney returned to play a couple of gigs and secret warm up events were staged there by Arctic Monkeys, Jake Bugg, Travis and Oasis over the years. My one visit to Liverpool Cavern Club took place there in 2013 where I witnessed a singer called Freddie. I walked past recently and noted that they now charge simply for the privilege of entering the establishment, so I may not be visiting again!

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!