Manchester Venue 4 – Boardwalk

The Boardwalk was a small venue (capacity initially about 250 before increasing to 400) in an industrial area on Little Peter St behind Deansgate station. It was a stone’s throw from the Hacienda and was a fine venue between 1984 and 1999. It doubled up as a recording space and Oasis played their first ever gig on 18/08/91.

You went up some narrow steps to the main room with a bar on the left and I recall it was a very warm venue.

Picture of John Robb, journalist and lead singer of Membranes and Goldblade, who despite being a Blackpool FC fan is a genuinely good bloke. Image Credit mdm.archive.co.uk

Between 18/06/1987 and 09/10/1992 I attended five gigs there. The first being a very early fine gig by the Proclaimers supported by the Rhythm Sisters. They came on at 11pm with late stage times being a regular occurrence and they played the whole first album and then ran out of songs so played the first track again.

The second gig on the 18/07/87 was a proper event. On John Peel’s show on the Wednesday it was referenced that the legendary Big Black were playing their final ever British dates, the penultimate one being on the Saturday. I put a call into Piccadilly Records box office on the Thursday morning and was informed there were a handful of tickets and asked them to save me two which we agreed would be picked up in person on Saturday afternoon, but upon arrival we were informed that there had been an oversight and the gig was now sold out. Hope extinguished one might think, however there was a chink of light as we were informed that the venue always held 50 tickets back. So off we trotted and we were the first in the queue at 8pm to obtain said tickets. I recall a minibus arriving from Crewe with the aspiration of garnering some tickets.

Pubs were then visited in celebration and we returned to catch the support band Death by Milk Float. Big Black themselves were an intense slightly unsettling experience with their industrial noise, at one point in their enthusiasm the crowd pulled lead singer Steve Albini into the moshpit, causing a 10 minute delay. They were thoroughly worth the ticket palaver to witness them before the band disbanded, ‘Kerosene’ was outstanding. We returned home to watch a recording of Steven Roche wrap up the Tour De France which he won the next day.

Steve Albini of Big Black on stage. Image Credit blogspot.com

The third gig the following year was a band called Pussy Galore who were not that memorable.

The fourth in Sept 89 was Firehose supported again bizarrely by Death by Milk Float. My now wife Gill was studying in Crewe at the time and one of the ticket outlets was located in a record shop there. So on a weekend visit I scamped in to purchase some tickets completing the full circle of the Crewe/Boardwalk link. Firehose appeared out of the original band Minutemen after the untimely death of their lead singer D Boon in a car crash. A chap called EdFromOhio made an approach and encouraged the band to reform with him stepping in as lead singer.

When they came on stage we realised that we had unwittingly being sat near them in the Briton’s Protection pre-gig (very limited band photos available pre-internet to know what people looked like). They were a terrific live act and for some inexplicable reason I wandered into their dressing room and said hello to Ed who walked off without a word which I took as my cue to curb my interloping activities and go home!    

My final appearance at the Boardwalk was to watch Sugar supported by Venus Beads on 09/10/92. Sugar was ex Husker Du Bob Mould’s new band which finally brought him some much deserved critical acclaim. They produced a thunderous set which was a suitable epitaph to a sorely missed venue.

Manchester Venue 1 – Apollo

So, where to start? – taking my cue from the theme tune for arguably the finest ever foreign drama The Bridge which advises you to go back to the very beginning…

My first Manchester venue was planned to be the Hacienda in 1985 to see Hüsker Dü but despite having tickets we could not find a mode of transport to be able to get home. Last train to Preston in those days was a 10.30 bone rattler from Victoria and the band would not even arrive on stage at that point so the trip was canned. Regretfully, I never got another chance to visit the Hacienda.

Having heard of our plight, my parents offered to give us a lift to any gig the following night so an Apollo gig of Stanley Clarke/George Duke (previously of Funkadelica) was chosen which also incorporated Philip Bailey of ‘Easy Lover’ fame and support provided by Hugh Masakela.

My current standing is 10 gigs at the Apollo but to be fair not that many memorable ones as I am not a great fan of the venue due to the overzealous bouncers at times, tricky location and layout (seats at a Pogues gig makes no sense to me). I witnessed them physically ejecting a peaceful though slightly over enthusiastic group from a 10,000 Maniacs gig only to be summarily bollocked by lead singer Natalie Merchant which was a joy to behold and they were subsequently re-admitted. To be fair those incident were in the 80’s and 90’s and conditions there have improved.

The Apollo today. Image credit visitnorthwest.com

It is an old fashioned somewhat cavernous theatre with reasonable acoustics and there was just one  battered old Wilsons pub in the vicinity down an adjacent side street. Taxis started to increase in later visits making the commute back into town a tad easier. 

Other bands seen there were Garbage, Morcheeba, Scissor Sisters (campest gig I have ever attended), Feeder (twice) and Devo on a later tour (faded glories!). There was also one failed attempt when heading to a Red Wedge event in the late 80’s featuring Billy Bragg where there was an automotive breakdown on the dark streets of Salford which involved a train home, no gig and car retrieval the next day.

My abiding memory of the venue was on my last visit on 29/06/08 to see My Bloody Valentine. It was on a Sunday and Simon Price wrote a review in the Independent that day imploring that they were the loudest band he had ever seen. On arrival, they were handing out free ear drums but me being a stubborn git declined that offer as I had witnessed many cacophonous bands before. However, even the first strum of guitar on stage made me step backwards with the clout it carried, They were recorded at 120 decibels which is the equivalent of a plane taking off and I masochistically enjoyed it but was somewhat glad at the end it would be a one-off experience.

Picture shows MBV at the Apollo. Image Credit Flickr

https://academymusicgroup.com/o2apollomanchester

So from one of my least favourite venues to my overall favourite in Manchester Venue 2 blog…