Tag: Fontaines DC

Manchester Venue 135 – Bread Shed

On the opposite side of Grosvenor Street from the Deaf Institute venue you will find the Sand Bar. This is one of the many hostelries within the Oxford Road corridor, but it is a singular Manchester institution and one of my fave places to visit. It came into existence in the mid-90’s and I have been attending there for pre-gig drinks for many years. It is housed in an old industrial mill with an olde world feel and has an unprepossessing and almost hidden entrance. They have always served fine beers and was the first place that I was aware of that stocked continental lagers and was the location of my first sampling of the Bavarian Schneider Weisse wheat beer!  

Manchester Sand Bar. Image Credit flickr.com

On the next corner is another watering hole with the previously very simplistic name of ‘The Pub’. It is housed in a Grade II listed building, and they regularly have quiz nights and open mic nights, this one being more of a sporadically visited hostelry. A recent artistic addition to their side wall in May this year was a large mural of Kurt Cobain. At the back of this pub for many years there was a nightclub called the Zoo, now a singular music venue called Manchester Bread Shed.

I first visited the venue in its Zoo nightclub phase as part of the Dot to Dot festival event in 2013 and the act on stage was Beans on Toast which is the stage name of folk singer Jay McAllister who derives from Braintree in Essex. He is a prolific musician and has recorded fifteen albums since 2005 and has a liking for releasing them on his birthday of 1st December.

The Bread Shed. Image Credit designmynight.com

To be honest, he was not my cup of Yorkshire Tea though there were many punters in there who were lapping up his performance. On a personal front, my day improved dramatically immediately after as I caught a startlingly good Wolf Alice set across the road in the Deaf Institute.

In August 2017 the site rebooted as the Bread Shed and the owners Stonegate Pub Company spent £450k on upgrades. The unusual name derived from the history of the building as in the 1900’s it was the Duncan & Foster bakery site. This was also reflected in the attached pub revising its name to the Flour & Flagon. It was set up as an events space with a 480 capacity and beyond the live music they also reinstated the XS Malarkey comedy night that had for a short period been rehomed at the Comedy Store.   

Prior to attending a Fontaines DC gig at Gorilla in 2019 I cheekily blagged my way into the venue and caught a portion of a pretty woeful Iron Maiden tribute who were at the same low calibre level of the ‘legendary’ Damascus gig (my third ever gig) at Preston Clouds in 1984!   

My next visit was in October 23 where Marcus and Anita attended with Gill and I. Marcus had some ticket issues on the door but managed to negotiate his way in. The band we had come to see was the Boo Radleys who I was witnessing after a 29-year sabbatical as I had not seen them since two gigs in 1994. They were on a rotating joint headline tour and were the support on the night and were in excellent form with the fabulous ‘Lazarus’ being performed towards the end of their set.  

The headliners were Cud who are an electro indie band from Leeds who I had surprisingly never seen before. They formed in 1987, broke up in 1995, but reformed again in 2006. In their first incarnation they undertook a cover of Hot Chocolate’s ‘You Sexy Thing’ which garnered a number 20 position in John Peel’s festive fifty in 1988. Their lead singer is Carl Puttnam who can be marmite to some people, and I honestly didn’t approach them with high expectations. However, these chaps could play and were seriously good fun, reminding me of the vibrancy of Electric Six’s live performances.   

Cud band. Image Credit 3loopmusic.com

My latest visit was in April this year to see the ska/punk sounds of Snuff for the eighth time. Just when I was thinking the audience were very quiet on the first three tracks and not resembling an archetypal Snuff crowd they then played ‘Soul Limbo’ cricket theme, and the place went ballistic! So much so the instantly created moshpit had a kick back and Uncle George was knocked back onto the floor and temporarily flattened, but he is literally made of Teflon so bounced straight back up again! I had a rare foray into the pit myself for a few tracks and as ever thoroughly enjoyed their show!    

Preston Venue 42 – The Venue

Situated near to the Bus Station on Lords Walk there is a Preston pub with a long history and many owners. In the 1960’s and 1970’s it was named Moonraker’s and was a firmly established music venue, details on the musical content in this era are a tad sketchy but local legends Dennis Delight and various punk bands are referenced as having played there.

For the 1980’s kids out there you may recognise it when its moniker was the Amsterdam Bar before then changing its name to the Blue Moon. As you entered the pub from the entrance there was a reasonable size tap room and a door to the right transported you into the large main room. It was the first pub Gill and I ever had a drink in on our first date back in January 1988.  

The pub in its current Blitz phase. Image Credit Ents24.

I was a decent pool player in my youth briefly playing for the Joplins pub team, and for many years in the Blue Moon tap room there were a couple of pool tables and I recall one Friday night in there going a personal best ‘winner stay on’ ten games undefeated.  

The name changed again to the Town End bar creating an affinity and linkage to the local Preston North End football team. It then became Pachas which was designed as a ‘fun pub’ under the tutelage of Colin Durnan, who previously ran the infamous Hollywood Bar on Deepdale Road.

In 2004, John Bates, the owner of 12 Bar on Church St took over and reinstated it as a live music hub  again and it then passed over by the owner of the Mill who renamed it the Venue. It then morphed into a club called Beats of Rage. At that current point in time there was a huge game changing Tithebarn development planned across that area of Preston, threatening impending closure so it was cleverly renamed Coda, representing the final bars of a song and they became a successful dance club with a renowned club title Mixmag. Somewhat unsurprisingly the Tithebarn scheme never reached fruition.

A complete change in direction ensued in 2010 when the renowned Frog and Bucket comedy club became ensconced there and the likes of John Bishop and Terry Christian graced the stage. Sarah Millican used to utilise the club to test run her brand-new material.

It then finally became its latest incarnation by reverting back its musical roots under the name of Blitz. Now, somewhat confusingly I did cover in an earlier blog my attendance at the other venue in Preston which for a short period was also called Blitz which in 2013 was in the old Gatsby nightclub building on Great Shaw Street.  

This particular blog though is concerned with the Lords Walk Blitz site where they have been closely linked to Action Records and have had pre tour or promo performances from the likes of Fontaines DC and Snow Patrol.

My one attendance there was on 14/07/06 when it was called Preston The Venue. It was a Battle of the Bands event and the first act we witnessed was Jelly’s Last Jam, who formed in 2005 from the ashes of a previous band called Frencheryk. The bassist Martin Clarke was co-managing the Mitre Tavern pub down on North Road, and two of the band members were also residing there so many of their early rehearsals took place in that boozer. The pub itself has long since closed and is now a business called Vets and Pets.  

The Mitre Tavern. Image Credit Lancashire Evening Post.

The other band we saw were called Green Room who are a three-piece from Preston who also formed in 2005. Their first ever gig was held at the Adelphi venue in Preston, and they were a female fronted act who sat in the trip-hop genre, not dissimilar to Portishead and Massive Attack.