Tag: Calvin Harris

Liverpool Venues 31 to 32

On the days when I am navigating my way back to Lime Street train station after a visit to the Liverpool office, I quite often skelp down Mathew Street, where you enter into an alternate ‘Beatleland’ area with music assailing your ears at every point.

Towards the bottom of the road is Liverpool Grapes Inn which resides in a building that dates back to 1804. There is little documentation on the earlier hostelries that were in that very spot. Considering how busy the thoroughfare is today; it is remarkable to recall that in the early 1960’s it was only pub on the whole street, and in those days, it was surrounded by warehouses.

Grapes Inn. Image Credit creativetourist.com

It was a customary watering hole for the young Beatles after their regular Cavern gigs as the club at that point was unlicensed. There is a famous photo of them in the Inn circa 1962 with what looks like pints of Mild! It was for a short period the Famous Grapes and like many others, including the Dog and Partridge at Didsbury, was renamed the Beautiful South when the said band went on a month long promotional tour.

It has been through many refurbishments, but they have always endeavoured to retain the original features, some which continue to be discovered to this day. On the day I passed there was a tour party being entertained by Eddie and Edie on a makeshift stage in front of the pub, they were somewhat predictably singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

I have just learnt that the song was given its debut in the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel and is in fact sung twice at separate occasions in the production. This being prior to the universally famous cover by Gerry and the Pacemakers in 1963, which then was further adopted by the Liverpool fans on the Spion Kop at Anfield.   

Beatles having a bevy. Image Credit Liverpool Echo.

Returning now to my Sound City Festival 2025 review and having quickly adopted a lessons learned from having accessibility issues to the Jacaranda we headed next door in good time for the next band in the Liverpool Shipping Forecast. It was previously a Flares branch pub and looks like it has been open since 2010 in its current format.

There is a welcoming wood panelled main ground floor bar and then there is the upstairs space (known as the Top Deck) which stages mainly DJ events with the likes of Calvin Harris and Mark Ronson having played there in the past. They have held periodic vinyl fairs, and their kitchen is linked to Ruby Jean’s diner, which churns out ‘Americana’ tucker (basically anything unhealthy).

The lavatories used to have a special touch in that the actual shipping forecast, first broadcast on Radio 4 in 1925, was piped into them, alongside relaxing sounds of waves and seagulls. However, the kit was subsequently stolen, and I shall respectfully refrain at this stage from any Scouse ‘hub cap’ references!    

Shipping Forecast. Image Credit creativetourist.com

Our destination was reached by heading down the steps into The Hold venue which has a capacity of 200 and it fits perfectly into the archetypal category of a sweaty cellar bar, in a good way!  The brickwork is exposed with a low wooden beam roof, which served to enhance the acoustics, however you do face the inevitable ‘pillar viewability’ challenge.

Despite the venue size they do admirably attract a decent level of band with Ghostpoet, Four Tet, Deary, Futureheads and Pulled Apart by Horses having graced the stage there. The main bar was not open that day, but thankfully they had some cold cans available at a pop-up table bar.

On stage was a young Liverpool singer/songwriter called Dylan Robert (no prizes for where his first name derived from!). He commenced his musical journey at the age of ten when he played guitar with his best mate Ben Harper. These two chaps have stuck together as Ben is now his producer. He also had a shared passion with football but a broken collarbone at the age of eleven resulted in him turning 100% down the musical path.

He had progressed up onto the main bill from a spot on the Sound City showcase roster in 2024. He has already released a slew of singles and I enjoyed his set, where he reminded me a little bit of another Liverpool act Shack. 

Electric Fields Festival – Part 1

Previous subscribers to this blog will know that I was a major fan of the Wickerman Festival and had great fun at the 14 annual shindigs that were held. Since the last gathering in 2015, our gig crew have been hunting for a comparable event and the nearest we have achieved since was the Electric Fields Festival we attended in September 2018. With that historical context I thought this would be appropriate content for my 300th blog and as the words flowed it resulted in additionally being my 301st!

The festival slowly built from an initial friend gathering into a fully fledged event in 2016 and the chosen location was Drumnlarig Castle in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway, about a 90-minute drive from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Carlisle. It utilised the bonny grounds of the category A listed castle which was built in the late 16th century which carried the name of the ‘Pink Palace’ due to the finely hewed glinting red sandstone exterior.    

Drumnlarig Castle. Image Credit sobt.co.uk

It is apparently very grand and ornate on the interior with the small matter of its 120 rooms, 4 towers and 17 turrets. It also contains the Buccleuch Collection which houses a rare Rembrandt of ‘An Old Woman Reading’ and renowned 17th century French furniture and silver. They did also have a Leonardo Da Vinci painting that was stolen in 2003 but recovered in 2007 from an address in Glasgow.

There is also an old roman fort in the Southeast corner of the grounds which was featured in the Time Team programme, and it has been used as a filming location for the TV series Outlander. The estate is rarely opened to the public, but they did provide permission for the festival to be held there between 2016 and 2018.

The nearest conurbation to the site is the sleepy village of Thornhill with a vast population of around 1500 inhabitants which lies on the edge of the River Nith. It contains a couple of pubs and the seemingly obligatory Chinese takeaway alongside a small cottage hospital.

Famous ‘Thornhillians’ include the explorer Joseph Thomson who has the eminent Thomson’s gazelle named after him, which are also sometimes referred to as a ‘tommie’. Another is ex-professional golfer Andrew Coltart who is now a respected commentator on Sky Sports.

A ‘Tommie’. Image Credit animalcorner.org

Since 2012 the Thornhill Music Festival has been staged there, with the original event being instigated by the long-standing Scottish blues combo The Lewis Hamilton Band (not the Formula 1 driver!). That particular band are still active and are regularly on the road.

The festival is still on the roster and the 2025 version took place on the May Day Bank Holiday at the Farmer Arms in the village. One of the headliners was The Cherry Pinks who I saw in 2024 when they played the Wickerman Fringe event. The pub coincidentally won the Dumfries and Stewarty CAMRA branch pub of the year for 2025.  

Thornhill Music Festival flyer. Image Credit facebook.com

After three successful years in Drumnlarig, Electric Fields organisers made the ill-fated decision to relocate to SWG3 in Glasgow due to logistical challenges and increasing costs. However then due to complaints from attendees and ticketing issues, the festival folded, and the 2019 version never took place, and it has never been rebooted.

I could not attend the 2017 carnival as we were in the process of relocating to Manchester that very weekend. Nevertheless, in my absence the boys headed up there to make a debut appearance with Jesus and Mary Chain, Car Seat Headrest and Pins amongst others on the bill.

They lodged at ‘Dewhurst Towers’ in Kirkcudbright and utilised the old Wickerman nemesis of Mr Allen’s taxis for the commute to and from the site. The one downside they referenced was that it was a long way to travel as it was forty miles and over an hour each leg of the journey.   

I ensured there were no ‘life events’ disbarring me making a pilgrimage up to the 2018 gathering. Travel lessons were learnt from the previous year and lodgings were sought in the vibrant town of Dumfries.   

In 1306, Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries was the location of Robert the Bruce, the future King of Scots, slaying his rival John Comyn III of Badenoch and during World War II the Norwegian armed forces in exile brigade was based there. Loreburn Hall, known locally as The Drill Hall has held concerts from Big Country, The Proclaimers and Black Sabbath.

Famous ‘Doonhamers’ include in their ranks Henry Duncan, founder of the world’s first commercial savings bank, J.M Barrie, author of Peter Pan, John Lawrie, Private Fraser in Dad’s Army, musicians Ray Wilson, once lead singer of Genesis and Calvin Harris. The final ex-resident is Kirsty Wark, the excellent broadcaster who undertook the heartbreaking interview of my favourite author Iain Banks shortly before his premature passing.