Tag: Green Day

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.

Manchester Venue 13 – Roadhouse

When I converse with seasoned Manchester gig goers three particular older venues in my experience are remembered fondly. These are namely the International 1, Boardwalk and Manchester Roadhouse. The venue was located at Number 8 Newton Street in the Northern Quarter. The club had previously been a snack bar and nightclub in the 70’s before morphing into a music venue. The venue sadly closed in 2015.

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The Roadhouse. Image Credit NME

It was a slightly scuzzy but charming basement club with a small stage and a capacity of 200. One of my largest regrets was being aware of White Stripes playing there on a very early tour but not being able to make the gig.  

I attended 5 gigs there between 1998 and 2009. The first being Mogwai in April 1998. Now, I am not usually prone to being melodramatic, but it was one of the strangest nights of my life. The night started normally enough with me, John Dewhurst and Nick Sharp in attendance. We had only a couple of beers in the Millstone on Thomas St where I suspected afterwards that potentially our drinks were spiked.

The night then on is distinctly hazy. The support band was Aerial M who also sometimes worked under the moniker Papa M. It was the first time I had seen Mogwai and from what I remember they were excellent. Nick disappeared unannounced mid gig and headed home as he felt ropey. Me and John headed on auto pilot for some supper to kill an hour before the late train but neither of us ate much and John was not himself. I was then very unusually for me physically ill at the station.

The finale to this surreal trip occurred on the train where I was awoken from a slumber by a commotion around me. The bizarre sight that greeted me on my awakening was the train guard stood in front of me with an axe. With my heart racing, I asked him the reason and it turned out the train was blocked by a small tree that he was going to clear with the said tomahawk. I was never so glad to arrive home as I was that night!

My next visit was in May 99 to see the at the time highly touted Llama Farmers from Greenwich supported by Seafood. They had obtained some decent supports slots to the likes of Green Day and Foo Fighters, but I can honestly say they didn’t live up to the hype and sounded too much like Placebo for my liking. They released 2 albums but subsequently drifted away on the ether.

The previous year I discovered a band with the very unique name of And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead from Austin Texas who had a released a decent self-titled first album. They arrived at the Roadhouse in March 2000. Unfortunately, they attracted the most annoying heckler who directed unjustified sustained vitriol at the unfortunate support act Sleepwalker.

AYWKUBTTOD were excellent with their post hardcore scuzzy sound and I recall the drummer and guitarist trading places several times during the gig. They are still on the circuit and have just released their tenth album.

My last gig there on 12/06/09 was to see Drones a punk rock band from Perth, Australia supported by the Snowmen. We happened to be out in Manchester and fell upon this gig and it is one of those that I cannot recall much about, it just passed me by.

My penultimate show was more memorable when I went to see Asobi Seksu on 10/02/09. The gig was originally scheduled for Jilly’s Rockworld on Oxford Road however before the scheduled gig the venue closed for good and the gig rescheduled to the Roadhouse. That was my one shot at attending the Rockworld, so it remains a lost venue.

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Asobi Seksu. Image credit Allmusic

Asobi Seksu were from New York and in the shoegaze/dream pop genre and their first two albums were excellent. They could certainly cut it live as well with a periodic thunderous guitar line in there. Another endearing element to this gig was the surprisingly enlightened approach from the bouncers to allow us to stand on chairs at the back to view the stage as visibility at the venue could be impaired when busy.  

The band had a DIY ethic exemplified by them running their own merch stand. A couple of years after I heard one of their tracks booming out when in Top Shop in Southport and I would say undoubtedly, I was the only punter in the store who could name that band!