Tag: Clint Boon

Stockport Venues 15 to 17

In the Stockport suburb of Heaton Moor you will find the Stockport Moor Top public house. There was originally a batch of six houses that were built on that spot back in 1875 and named Belmont Terrace. In 1953 the Wilsons brewery obtained four, then swiftly demolished them and built the hostelry in their place.

For a spell it was owned by Steve Pilling who at the time owned the well renowned Damson restaurant across the road, but that has now long gone. The pub had a dubious reputation back in the day and more recent refurbishments have endeavoured to change the ‘housing estate pub’ look, though its appearance does remind me of the old 1980’s Preston boozers such as the Spindlemakers and the John O Gaunt.   

Spindlemakers pub in Preston. Image Credit bloggergoogleusercontent.com

They have a large partially covered outside area that is very well populated in the summer months, the inside can be a little soulless with a large open room, but they are always friendly behind the bar. They don’t normally have live music, but I struck lucky one night when I saw a local singer called Marvin performing.

If you then weave off down Green Lane, you reach six bonny self-detached cottages on the left. These are a group of almshouses (defined as originally founded by charity) which are known locally as the ‘Ainsworth Homes’ and were originally built in 1907.   

A right turn from there takes you to the Nursery Inn which at the rear contains a beer garden which overlooks a large bowling green. Opposite the pub is the Bowerham chippy which has proper old fashioned opening hours of 11.30am to 1.45pm and 4.30 – 8.30pm, the latter times surely enabling punters to pick up their fish supper on their bumble home! A downhill path then guides you through to the huge Stockport Pyramid roundabout.

Backtracking onto Green Road brings you to the Stockport Heaton Moor Sports Club. Within their extensive grounds there is contained a rugby, lacrosse, tennis and cricket club and they were originally formed in 1899. They also stage a monthly comedy club that is a sister initiative to the nearby Didsbury comedy club.  

Heaton Moor Sports Club. Image Credit themanc.com

My one and only attendance was on a sunny day to attend the annual beer festival in August 2025, with a cricket match in full flow when we arrived. They were also staging outdoor live music, and I was finally going to see the nattily named Reservoir Dads, who are a South Manchester covers band.

I have missed them thus far on their regular appearances at the Crown pub down the road, and totally unjustifiably had the hope that their name would imply some performance in the domain of Arthur Brown or Ozzy Osbourne in his bat biting stage! I could not have been much wider of the mark as after much faffing they finally hit the stage and were exceedingly limp and even had a mum in the band that day!     

I am now transporting you from there into the heart of the city centre and the grand old marketplace where there is a plethora of pubs surrounding the indoor market hall. One such hostelry was Stockport Doctor Feelgood, which was named after the band who were formed in Essex and gained their initial following on the renowned pub rock circuit in the early 1970’s. Their most famous track would be ‘Milk and Alcohol’.

Doctor Feelgood. Image Credit manchestersfinest.com

They remain an act to this day with a much changed line up, with previous members including the original singer David Brilleaux who went on to form the influential Stiff Records in 1976. Perhaps their most famous alumni would be John Andrew Wilkinson (more regularly known as Wilko Johnson) who developed a highly unusual percussive guitar sound by playing with his fingertips and not the standard plectrum. In 2011 he garnered a part on Game of Thrones where for a couple of series he played the mute executioner Ser Ilyn Payne.

In June 2021 the pub opened as a rock bar staging live music most nights a week, but due to rising costs it closed a couple of years later. It then reopened under a new venture Amp which then closed itself eighteen months later. During its tenure the likes of Bez, Clint Boon, Miles Kane and You Me at Six performed there. My personal single foray was to see Rock Doctors, a band I had previously witnessed at the aforementioned Crown.     

Manchester Venues 147 to 148 – Royal Northern College of Music

As you progress down Oxford Road towards the Academy venues you reach the traffic light junction with Booth Street West and on that very corner is the Manchester Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). Just beyond there is a recently developed retail area containing a Brewdog outpost and a branch of the omnipresent fast food chain Five Guys.

Across the road from the RNCM for many years resided the Phoenix public house, previously Barney McGrews, situated under the precinct. I can find records of the Phoenix being around since the 1970’s and in those days, it was a punky biker venue where upstairs they held sweaty club nights under the Tangled or Acid Rock monikers.

Phoenix pub. Image Credit manchestersfinest.com

Live music was staged there from 1977 onwards on the Bass Charrington pub rock circuit roster. There are scant details of bands but can find evidence of Aqua, a Burnage High school band, (does that scenario sound familiar?) who played there the following year with Graham Massey of 808 State in their ranks. They are absolutely not to be confused with the other band with the same name who release ‘Barbie Girl’ a couple of decades later!  

It was a renowned student haunt due to its proximity to the universities. It became more of a drum and bass venue in the 1990’s and Clint Boon, Mani and Piccadilly Records used to undertake DJ nights there.  Around the time I visited, it had morphed into an ‘It’s a Scream’ chain pub with bright yellow frontage and was in a very tired state by then. It subsequently closed its doors for the final time in 2011.

The RNCM was officially opened in its current location on 28 June 1973 and was a fusion of the Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM), which opened in 1893 with original principal being Sir Charles Halle and the Northern School of Music, founded in 1920.

Its remit encompasses musical education and contains two thriving public performance venues alongside a smaller recital room and theatre, the latter two spaces are utilised in the main for educational and conference events. The college was subject to a £7.1m refurbishment in November 2014 across all areas including a new lighting rig and sound equipment. Previous alumni naturally contains many illustrious conductors and composers and also Howard Jones!  

RNCM. Image Credit Royal Northern College of Music.

The first venue I will cover is the Royal Northern College of Music Concert Hall which has a fixed seating of either 443 or 598 with an additional balcony setting raising the maximum capacity to 710. The layout ensures that all of the seating encircles the stage in the middle of the room and ensures a good view from all vantage points. They have a constant diverse roster of performances and previous acts to play there include Adele, David Byrne, Hugh Laurie, Halle Orchestra and Jarvis Cocker. Filming has also taken place there for television shows Waterloo Road and Question Time.

My first attendance was in November 2013, and I had an unusual journey there. On the day I needed to attend a workshop in the glamorous location of Telford, thus caught a train from there direct to Manchester and met up with the rest of the crew in the Joshua Brooks public house. I recall we also visited the Sand Bar and naturally gravitated to our usual nearby noodle bar for some tea.

As you enter the RNCM building there is initially a bar and café area before you reach the venue hall at the end of the corridor. They adopt a similar policy to the Royal Albert Hall where you could not take drinks into the venue and if returning from a comfort break you had to wait until the current track finished before you can grab your seat again.

The act that day was the incomparable Mark Lanegan, personally one of my Top 5 favourite vocalists with his gravelly ‘lived in’ unique delivery. He was touring his recent album ‘Imitations’ which featured cover versions of tracks by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Nancy Sinatra and John Cale.

On the night he undertook an excellent version of Bobby Darin’s ‘Mack the Knife’ and Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite of Love’, the latter especially poignant as Lou had recently passed away. I have just read this week of a hugely emotional concert held with guest artists to celebrate what would have been Mark’s 60th birthday, he is sorely missed.

Mark Lanegan. Image Credit mubi.com

I had one other attendance there a couple of years later to see Mercury Rev and I spotted John Robb in the audience. The band were in a particularly noisy mode that evening with some guitar heavy tracks in the set, which suited me down to the ground!

The other venue is the Royal Northern College of Music Theatre which has fixed seating capacity of 600 plus the option to have additional removable pit seats. This is a more traditional ‘cinema style’ setting and I have visited there just the once in October 2023. We went to see a play called New Dawn Fades which chronicles the story of Joy Division which contain live songs with a full band. It is written and directed by Brian Gorman who also takes an acting role as Factory boss Tony Wilson.  It was pretty well made but the second half of it leading to Ian Curtis’s suicide was understandably very bleak viewing.