Tag: Fatherson

Manchester Venue 92 – Band on the Wall

At the top end of Oldham Street, you find the Comedy Club and the iconic Crown and Kettle public house across on the other side of busy Swan Street. Hundred yards to the left of there is the oldest venue in town, Manchester Band on the Wall, which sits opposite to the Fringe Bar.

Crown and Kettle interior. Image Credit eatmcr.co.uk

The venue was originally opened as the George and Dragon pub in 1803 within a big market area, even in those very early days it had a licence for song and dance. It was located near the old gathering place of ‘New Cross’ where many an Industrial Revolution demonstration took place. The landlord in residence between the 1930’s and 1950’s was a no-nonsense chap called Ernie Tyson who decided to expand the repertoire and created a stage halfway up the wall at the rear of the pub, hence the name of the establishment was formed.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s it sat in the jazz domain before punk hit and the Buzzcocks and Joy Division played early gigs, the latter allegedly signed in blood their recording contract there with Tony H Wilson. The venue is registered as a charity so allows more artistic freedom and its music resides mainly in the roots and soul genre and because of this not one I have visited regularly. To exemplify this musical ethos, Craig Charles has for many years undertaken a monthly DJ residence there.   

It is an award-winning establishment and has recently been refurbished, it has an initial bar area as you enter which now has the ability to stage smaller performances with an 80-person capacity. Then to your left there is a step free access into the main music room with an additional balcony overlooking the stage and this area now has an increased capacity of 500 due to an expansion into the adjoining three-storey Cocozza Wood building.  

Band on the Wall. Image Credit DesignMyNight.com

One of the seminal and most influential bands of my youth was Husker Du and I was fortunate to see them twice back in the day and at the first gig had a brief chat with the band and I have been playing a lot of their considerable output recently. Post their breakup in 1988 I kept a close eye on the individual output of the members of the band and saw Sugar several times and Bob Mould solo a couple of times.

The drummer Grant Hart was less prolific in his output and toured far less prior to his untimely death in 2017. His passing hit me like a sledgehammer in much the same way Mark Lanegan’s did, perhaps also inciting selfishly the mourning of your past youth! 

He was a fabulous drummer with my personal favourite of his art being the thunderous driving rhythm of Husker Du’s ‘New Day Rising’, go on have a listen to it right now! He also released some terrific solo records, particularly the first two ‘Intolerance’ and ‘Good News for the Modern Man’, the initial one being issued via the legendary SST records.  

I was therefore excited when I saw the news he was touring in December 2011, so tickets were purchased and off we popped. I was a tad worried when I saw it was just Grant and a backing track machine but surprisingly it worked with him topping up the sound on his guitar.

He had a considerable back catalogue and was inviting requests from the audience, however when one punter somewhat rudely stated ‘you need to play xxxx’, he was met with an instant withering response ‘you need to be on the streets man’! Standout tracks that evening were ‘2541’, ‘The Main’, ‘Never Talking to You Again’, ‘There’s a Girl who Lives on Heaven’s Hill’ and ‘Green Eyes’.  

Grant Hart. Image Credit SFGate

My other three attendances were all part of wristband events, the first in May 2018 was to see Desperate Journalist, a decent post punk band from London. At the following years Dot to Dot event, I witnessed part of an excellent set from Kilmarnock’s Fatherson. I very nearly saw them in Edinburgh a few years earlier but was glad to finally catch up with them. My final appearance was in November 2019 to see a local artist called Elysse Mason who reminded me to a degree of Lana Del Rey.

Edinburgh Gigs

My first visit to Edinburgh was in my youth when I recall vividly visiting the Castle in the days when you could wander round free of charge and of walking up Arthur’s Seat for a panoramic view of the city. We must have commuted in from one of the many Pontins/Butlins family holidays we undertook at that time, probably from Berwick on Tweed. We visited many of those camps, Ayr, Pwllheli, St Ives and Torbay spring to mind. We also once frequented Camber Sands, which many years later became the home for the All-Tomorrows Parties Festival events where they have had some fantastic bills, an event which I have never yet managed to attend.

In the early 90’s, Gill and I undertook a trip up the East Coast in our trusty beige Austin Allegro staying initially in Arbroath where I developed my kinship to their football club, before visiting Dundee, home of the View, before a leisurely couple of days in Edinburgh, including a visit for tapas at Café Anduluz on George Street, completing the trilogy of their Glasgow/Edinburgh restaurants, just the Aberdeen and Newcastle branches to visit at some stage to complete the club!

We have since utilised the excellent train links from Preston for other trips as the costs going North are infinitely less prohibitive than the extortionate fares now charged by Avanti down to London. I love the fact, like Glasgow, that the main Waverley Station is slam dunk in the centre of the city with easy access to the main drag on Princess Street. Running parallel to there is Rose Street with its plethora of bars and restaurants. On one of those forays, we missed an opportunity to see the Kilmarnock band Fatherson.

Edinburgh Waverley station with the Castle to the right. Image Credit edwud.com

We utilised Edinburgh as a base camp for my first visit to T in the Park in 1999, but it was a lengthy commute to the site, and we found some digs in the closer location of Glenfarg for my final two visits to the festival.

My first musical trip was to see Mogwai at Edinburgh Usher Hall on 27/04/06. The venue is a grand old concert hall near the castle on Lothian Road. It was constructed in 1914 and went through a huge refurbishment at the start of this century and has a capacity of 2200. It is in somewhat of a cultural zone with two other theatres adjoining it on either side.

In its early days it was a multi-purpose venue including political rallies, but they curtailed in 1934 after a huge protest occurred when Oswald Mosley was in town. It was also used as the boxing venue during the 1986 Commonwealth Games. In the main, it has been a classical venue but also hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 1972, and as you well know the UK entry that year was the New Seekers!

We decamped before the show into a pub next door watching a portion of a Middlesbrough UEFA Cup match as they were on a remarkable run to the final that year. The gig venue itself had French Riviera beer prices at the bar, so much so when at a lass at the bar ahead of us enquired the tariff for an ale, she cogitated for a moment and changed her order to a bottle of wine. This had to be decanted into the obligatory plastic glass, so became her pint of wine for the duration of the gig.

The Mogwai boys were in crackling form with a few songs being drawn off my favourite album of theirs ‘Mr Beast’ and the venue and acoustics really suited their expansive sound.  

Edinburgh Usher Hall. Image Credit sandybrown.com

My second visit was unsurprisingly to see Mogwai again at Edinburgh Corn Exchange on 21/10/08. We had digs near the Grass market area, and we identified that we needed to purloin a cab to the venue as it was located a fair way out of town in the Chesser area.

The original building was founded in 1909 and had Category B listing, it was restored towards the end of the century becoming a live venue then, before very recently being taken over and changing its name to the O2 Academy. It was a large multipurpose venue with a 3000 capacity, and I found the place to be a bit metallic and soulless.

The support act was a duo from Bristol called F##k Buttons whose first album was produced by Mogwai. Their harsh aggressive sound was initially intriguing but soon became repetitive. To be fair also it wasn’t one of my favourite Mogwai performances, they are always minimum level good, but the set list didn’t play to their strengths. Thankfully the band have a habit of rotating their play list each night so when I saw them in Manchester two nights later, they were back in exemplary form.

Via a further cab we reversed back to the Grass market area, where unfortunately I was not yet aware of Sneaky Pete’s as a venue of some repute which was located across the road, so we did not make a visit, but maybe will do so next time!