Tag: Glasgow Barrowland

Glasgow Venue 10 – The Hydro

In my 25 years of Mogwai watching, I always thoroughly enjoy when I can catch them in their home city of Glasgow, the three times I have witnessed them at Barrowland have been particular special nights. Thus, in December 2017 another Avanti express was boarded for their latest Glasgow date and I was accompanied by the three Dewhurst boys, Uncle George and a rare appearance from the inimitable Ian McIver.  I had very recently relocated to Manchester and was in an initial marginal homesick phase, so the timing was opportune to have a communal gather incorporating obligatory noisy music.

Glasgow Hydro. Image Credit blogspot.com

Our initial port of call was booking into our rooms at the hotel where we encountered some shenanigans confirming our reservation but that was smoothed out eventually. In a public house directly opposite the digs, I reverted into my traditional ‘sherpa’ mode to glean information on the area around our venue that evening at Glasgow Hydro. There was an impressively helpful bar chap who provided lots of local gen on the Anderston area of town.

It was a fair trek on the next leg as we navigated a footbridge over the M8 motorway. Our destination of Anderston was the birthplace of Thomas Lipton, Sir Billy Connolly and Eddi Reader of Fairground Attraction fame.

There were a plethora of pubs, some of which were the busiest I have seen in years. It sparked recollections of the golden age of alehouses in the 1980’s/90’s when as a scrawny scamp I visited Wall Street and the Grey Horse (turned into Yates Wine House in 1988) on the old main drag of Church Street in Preston town centre on many Friday and Saturday nights out.

Yates Wine Lodge in Preston. Image Credit lep.co.uk

The venues were so busy back in the day you had to plan a loo visit by mapping the quickest optimum route, potentially after drinking Bluebols or the cheap but vile house wine in Yates which was called Volari. The slightly surreal tag line on their advertising at the time was ‘Volari, the wine where the fun begins (backwards)!

Back in 2017, in the second hostelry we visited I was astonished to see Mr ‘helpful bar chap’ who had finished his earlier shift and was now on his own night out, so I managed to purchase him a cold beverage.   

The Hydro has had several names, the latest reflecting the current sponsors as OVO Hydro. It is a large multi-purpose indoor venue with a futuristic design including outer pneumatic translucent cushions. It was built at a cost of £125m and the capacity is between 12306 and 14500 dependent on seating/standing ratios which makes it the fifth largest in the UK. It opened on schedule on 30th September 2013 despite having a roof fire three months earlier, the opening act was Rod Stewart.

It has hosted boxing, wrestling, UFC and Commonwealth games events alongside having the kudos of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year being staged there in 2014. During the Independence referendum period, it hosted Scotland’s largest ever televised debate and has also staged the MTV Europe Music Awards.  Elton John, Kylie Minogue, Nine Inch Nails and Nile Rodgers and Chic amongst others have played there.

After following Mogwai for 20 years and seeing them in some tiny venues back in the day it was gratifying to see them gaining the acclaim they had always deserved and performing to their largest ever audience. However, the corresponding downside to that in my view was that the place was cavernous and impersonal. The band were introduced by their long-time pal, Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat who was decked out in Santa Claus garb!

Mogwai on stage at the Hydro. Image Credit theskinny.co.uk

They as ever were in fine form with the set list commencing with ‘Hunted By a Freak’ and ending with ‘We’re No Here’.  The night curtailed with a reverse laborious trog back to the hotel where we were very glad to able to rest our heads after another Mogwai adventure!

Glasgow Venue 8 – Rockers

I decided that I fancied a Northern foray to Glasgow to coincide with my 40th birthday in June 2008 and managed to gather a posse of six other friends to accompany me. The first challenge as ever was the transport as it looked initially that there was to be engineering work but thankfully that was subsequently averted.

We headed up on the Friday and stayed at the Premier Inn near Charing Cross Station off Sauchiehall Street and had a cold one in the Baby Grand Bar & Grill directly opposite the hotel where they do periodically have live acts playing on the house baby grand piano.

We then headed on to the nearby Nice N Sleazy, named after the Stranglers song and the bar also featured in the artwork for Mogwai’s Rock Action album. Refuelled by a monster bowl of noodles we travelled over to the East End of the city to a couple of rough and ready pubs including Bairds Bar by the Barrowland venue.

Baby Grand Bar and Grill. Image Credit Glasgow Live

Naturally I had ensured there would be live music developed into the schedule and located a gig that night at Glasgow Rockers. Rockers is situated on Midland Street, and is a small dingy punk club buried in a tunnel below Glasgow Central station with a capacity of probably about a hundred.

When I researched the club, I did find some initial evidence that Green Day had played there in 2009, which I thought highly improbable and surmised that this was in fact a transpositional error. My initial suspicions were confirmed when their past concert list showed them at that time being bang in the middle of a huge stadium tour of America!  

The first band we saw was The Babysitters who were followed by the Eddies from Dundee. The latter formed around the brothers Dean and Dale Hoth, who had just released their second album ‘Twice Around the World’.

Glasgow Nice N Sleazy. Image Credit coolplaces.co.uk

There was a curtain in front of the small stage where you could hear the main band Guns on the Roof warming up. They hailed from Leeds and had already garnered support slots with punk luminaries such as Anti-Nowhere League, Rancid, Stiff Little Fingers and UK Subs.

Our group constituted much of the audience so Uncle George endeavoured to good humouredly liven up the atmosphere by generating a punk style mini mosh pit with the main singer. He was perhaps a tad over boisterous, but the singer was also rather precious which resulted in him uttering the random comment of ‘get off me leg’!  We left soon after and topped off the night with ‘one for the ditch’ in the hotel bar.

We awoke to a gloriously sunny Saturday, and we achieved our first objective by purchasing some breakfast from a local café without the local obligatory option of additional cheese! We commuted back south to Carlisle for the next leg of our journey.

I had discovered there is a train that takes you on the scenic route from Carlisle to Lancaster which literally hugs the Cumbrian Coast, adding two hours to your overall journey but the scenery was a blast!  I think the train now runs from Lancaster to Barrow via those stations.

We passed through St Bees and Whitehaven where I bizarrely once saw Henry Rollins at the Civic Hall. Our first stop off was at Ravenglass to meet Tony Dewhurst who joined the crew from there onwards. On the Main Street there is another station where you can catch a narrow gauge steam train up to Eskdale. Ravenglass was also the location a few years ago for a British Sea Power festival which a couple of pals attended. Before departing we obviously paid a visit to the Ratty Arms pub.     

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway. Image Credit steamheritage.co.uk

For a train buff, the most exciting aspect of this trip was that there were request stops where you just simply asked the train guard to pull in at the next station, which happened for us to be Foxfield. Across the road was the renowned real ale pub the Prince of Wales where we had 55 minutes in the beer garden before the next hourly train came chugging around the reservoir.

Now, there are many legendary tales about Uncle George, yellow box, 8th tee and Rochdale disco to name an initial triumvirate. Ulverston was now added to that list, but paraphrasing from what they say in the movies, what happens in Ulverston literally stays in Ulverston!

We progressed onto Lancaster where we met the Berry brothers in a canal side pub and then had a fine curry in the ever-reliable Bombay Balti and then a subsequent minibus home to complete a rather fabulous weekend.