Tag: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

2025 Gigs – Part 2

I will continue my tales of 2025 gigs with Manchester St Ann’s Square where they have regular events around key dates of the year, for example St Patricks Day. At three at those singular events at different points, I saw the Bovver Boys, Barry’s Brass Band and a singer called Gwenda.  

Nearby to Manchester Piccadilly station resides the old atmospheric venue Manchester Star and Garter where in February I fell into capturing a small segment of an all-day gig there and witnessed some thunderous grindcore from local noiseniks Burnt Body, though I did sagaciously decide to abstain on the moshpit duties at that one!

Burnt Body. Image Credit facebook.com

In July I saw a Philadelphia ska punk act called Catbite whose chief vocalist was a lass called Brittany Luna who had previously trained as a jazz singer. She has recently performed with Laura Jane Grace who was previously the lead singer of Against Me, a band I saw on my 42nd birthday back in 2010. The duo performed some shows primarily paying a homage to Operation Ivy, a short-lived band who were a forerunner of the California ‘East Bay Sound’ in the late 1980’s. In the next step of the family tree two members of the Ivy then set up Rancid in 1991 who are still playing to this day.

In May I returned to the Academy complex for my 101st gig across all their four sites, this particular one taking place at Manchester Club Academy. My enigmatic pal Matty Allen is a Death Metal guru and had for a spell been jokingly sending me gig invites for various events, and I finally threw him a curve ball by accepting an interesting sounding one.  Another friend at work Ben, let’s call him Death Metal guru 2 was also knowledgeable and approving of the bands on the roster.

Thus Matty, his mate Rob and I gathered in Big Hands prior to the gig and had a conflab in their roof garden. The support band were called Cryptopsy who are from Montreal and were formed in 1988 and are now nine albums into their lineage. They were my preferred act on the evening, and the drummer Flo Mournier was particularly impressive, and they also used to have a vocalist with the jocular name of Lord Worm.

The headliners were Decapitated from Poland who formed in 1996 with the members ranging from 12 to 16 at that stage. They suffered untold tragedy in 2007 when the original drummer died in a car crash at the age of 23. They are regularly touted as one of the key proponents of the genre.

An additional observance of the crowd is that due to the intense nature of the music you could perhaps surmise they may have more of an aggressive outlook, but they were in fact one of the friendliest audiences I have ever encountered with a refreshing lack of phones in my eyeline.

Mani. Image Credit yahoo.com

At the nearby Manchester Academy, I caught Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for the sixth time and a full decade since my last sighting, they were playing the ‘Howl’ album which was celebrating its 20th anniversary. It is a softer sounding record but still contains some terrific tunes with ‘Complicated Situation’ being my fave. They were in good form and included a touching tribute to Mani, who had passed away three weeks earlier, by playing a solo acoustic Stone Roses track with full audience singalong.        

Prior to the gig at the aforementioned Manchester Big Hands, I saw a fuzzy and noisy garage rock band called Ahmed & The Romans who contained in their ranks three Italians and the lead singer Ahmed who is an Anglo-Egyptian. 

At the tail end of September Marcus and I trundled into Manchester Yes Basement. The band in question were called The Pill, an act that we had both simultaneously heard playing and being interviewed on Steve Lamacq’s 6 music show. Texts were instantly sent confirming that our interests were piqued and tickets were swiftly purchased.

The Pill. Image Credit genius.com

The Pill consist of spiky female duo Lily Hutchings and Lottie Massey from the Isle of Wight. They derive from the island that has recently spawned the not dissimilar Wet Leg and also Coach Party. They happened on a musical career via an unusual route as they started with the creation of a punk rock Pinocchio digital puppet show. They began to receive a considerable and unexpected following, and the band was the natural next step though Lily had never played before, so she actually learnt the guitar for the formation of the combo!

On the night, they were bloody good fun with tracks such as ‘Woman Driver’ and ‘Scaffolding Man’ with their whip smart lyrics that many prehistoric men would take literally and simply not have a scoobie that they were taking the proverbial!

London Eleventh and Twelfth Trips

I have travelled a few times down to London with work and at one stage was visiting a company who were based nearby to Moorgate station and adjacent to London Finsbury Square. In 1784 the Square witnessed the first successful attempt of a hot air balloon flight and there is also a memorial installed there to commemorate the 1975 Moorgate tube crash where 43 people perished.  

Finsbury Square. Image Credit londonplanning.org.uk

In the summer of 2017 after leaving a meeting I was headed back to the tube for the journey home and heard music playing. In the early 20th century, the square was home to the London Royal Yeomanry and on that day the Band of Royal Yeomanry (Inns of Court & City Yeomanry) were playing a gig.

Their regimental history dates to 1548 and the band formed in 1961. They perform at many events, including D-Day memorials in Normandy and 6 Nations matches at Twickenham. They still maintain their original ceremonial uniform of French blue jacket and trousers, chain mailed shoulders, George boots and spurs and Chapka helmets.

Band of Royal Yeomanry Band. Image Credit flickr.com

I have always been a huge fan of Hold Steady and have now seen them nine times in total and they sit in bronze medal position of my bands most seen list. That figure would undoubtedly be higher if not for the fact that they have not played a Manchester date since 19/10/14. The reason for this dearth is that they have chosen since then to just play an annual three-day residency in London with no other regional dates.

As a result, we decided to make a pilgrimage down to the smoke in 2019 as I was missing my Hold Steady fix! Their base for their seasonal jaunt is in the thriving Camden suburb of the city. I met Uncle George and John Dewhurst off the train, and we dropped our bags at the handy location of Euston Premier Inn.  We then headed off on the Northern tram line to find our first hostelry, the Dingwalls pub on Camden Lock overlooking the canal.

My first visit to that establishment was in 1987 when I saw Brilliant Corners supported by a yet undiscovered Happy Mondays. The pub has certainly gone through a regentrification phase since then, but they still have live music there on a regular basis.  We also had a foray to the Old Eagle public house and to refuel we hit a local pie shop but there were unfortunately no butter pies on sale!

The Hold Steady show took place at London Camden Electric Ballroom. The Ballroom is a long-established venue and has been in place for 80 years. It began its days as an Irish club where the crooner Jim Reeves used to play and adopted its current name in 1978. There used to be a weekend indoor market staged there and was in place until 2015. It survived potential demolition in 2004 when there was a proposal to redevelop Camden Town underground station.

Camden Electric Ballroom. Image Credit Electric Ballroom

There are two dance floors and four bars contained within and it has a capacity of 1500 and there was good viewing of the stage from any vantage point.  They launched straight in with the vibrant ‘Stuck Between Stations’ and didn’t let up for the next 24 tracks, it was another thoroughly enjoyable performance.

It was also appropriate as a milestone event as it was Uncle George’s and I 500th gig together, a mere 32 years since our first, a staggeringly good Pogues show at Manchester International 2. Our 100th was also a belter with Black Rebel Motorcycle playing the Mill, a small club in Preston.  

After the set had finished, George and I progressed onto London Camden Monarch for number 501. The original Monarch prior to 2000 was in another area of Camden which then became the music venue Barfly. The new Monarch opened in 2008 in a new site on Chalk Farm Road and the DJ on the opening night was none other than Amy Winehouse!

The pub subsequently closed in 2020 but reopened the following year under the new moniker Monarchy retaining the live music in a downstairs events space called the Vault.  On the night we visited a local indie band called Stay Club took to the stage.