Tag: Happy Mondays

London Eleventh and Twelfth Trips

I have travelled a few times down to London with work and at one stage was visiting a company who were based nearby to Moorgate station and adjacent to London Finsbury Square. In 1784 the Square witnessed the first successful attempt of a hot air balloon flight and there is also a memorial installed there to commemorate the 1975 Moorgate tube crash where 43 people perished.  

Finsbury Square. Image Credit londonplanning.org.uk

In the summer of 2017 after leaving a meeting I was headed back to the tube for the journey home and heard music playing. In the early 20th century, the square was home to the London Royal Yeomanry and on that day the Band of Royal Yeomanry (Inns of Court & City Yeomanry) were playing a gig.

Their regimental history dates to 1548 and the band formed in 1961. They perform at many events, including D-Day memorials in Normandy and 6 Nations matches at Twickenham. They still maintain their original ceremonial uniform of French blue jacket and trousers, chain mailed shoulders, George boots and spurs and Chapka helmets.

Band of Royal Yeomanry Band. Image Credit flickr.com

I have always been a huge fan of Hold Steady and have now seen them nine times in total and they sit in bronze medal position of my bands most seen list. That figure would undoubtedly be higher if not for the fact that they have not played a Manchester date since 19/10/14. The reason for this dearth is that they have chosen since then to just play an annual three-day residency in London with no other regional dates.

As a result, we decided to make a pilgrimage down to the smoke in 2019 as I was missing my Hold Steady fix! Their base for their seasonal jaunt is in the thriving Camden suburb of the city. I met Uncle George and John Dewhurst off the train, and we dropped our bags at the handy location of Euston Premier Inn.  We then headed off on the Northern tram line to find our first hostelry, the Dingwalls pub on Camden Lock overlooking the canal.

My first visit to that establishment was in 1987 when I saw Brilliant Corners supported by a yet undiscovered Happy Mondays. The pub has certainly gone through a regentrification phase since then, but they still have live music there on a regular basis.  We also had a foray to the Old Eagle public house and to refuel we hit a local pie shop but there were unfortunately no butter pies on sale!

The Hold Steady show took place at London Camden Electric Ballroom. The Ballroom is a long-established venue and has been in place for 80 years. It began its days as an Irish club where the crooner Jim Reeves used to play and adopted its current name in 1978. There used to be a weekend indoor market staged there and was in place until 2015. It survived potential demolition in 2004 when there was a proposal to redevelop Camden Town underground station.

Camden Electric Ballroom. Image Credit Electric Ballroom

There are two dance floors and four bars contained within and it has a capacity of 1500 and there was good viewing of the stage from any vantage point.  They launched straight in with the vibrant ‘Stuck Between Stations’ and didn’t let up for the next 24 tracks, it was another thoroughly enjoyable performance.

It was also appropriate as a milestone event as it was Uncle George’s and I 500th gig together, a mere 32 years since our first, a staggeringly good Pogues show at Manchester International 2. Our 100th was also a belter with Black Rebel Motorcycle playing the Mill, a small club in Preston.  

After the set had finished, George and I progressed onto London Camden Monarch for number 501. The original Monarch prior to 2000 was in another area of Camden which then became the music venue Barfly. The new Monarch opened in 2008 in a new site on Chalk Farm Road and the DJ on the opening night was none other than Amy Winehouse!

The pub subsequently closed in 2020 but reopened the following year under the new moniker Monarchy retaining the live music in a downstairs events space called the Vault.  On the night we visited a local indie band called Stay Club took to the stage.    

2021 Gigs – Part 3

The third and final part of reviewing the 2021 gigs recommences with a couple of visits to Manchester Ritz. The venue is now firmly ensconced in my Top 3 venues visited list as I have been attending there consistently over the years since my first attendance in October 87 watching the astoundingly loud and intense Swans.

First up on 22/09 was the old stalwarts Ash, who I was watching for the sixth time, three of those being at festivals, and it was the first time I had seen them in eleven years. Prior to the gig we had a drink in Brew Dog near Albert Hall on Peter Street, coincidentally the most profitable Brew Dog bar in the world, and then feasted on a pizza that took an age to arrive in Rudy’s Neapolitan restaurant next door.

I thought they were decent but slightly one dimensional, and I always contend that their sound has never been quite as complete since Charlotte Hatherley left, though admittedly they do still have a bagful of recognisable tunes. I was at the bar mid-set when I found out that PNE had drawn Liverpool at home in the League Cup though that subsequently ended up with the usual golden chances missed and then inevitable defeat.  

Ash in Charlotte Hatherley days. Image Credit Steve Scalise.

The other attendance was to see Maximo Park on 10/10 which saw Rick Clegg toggle over for a rare appearance in Manchester and I think his first visit to the Ritz. After a trio of scoops in Yes, Lass O Gowrie and Temple Bar we headed into the venue. It was the second time I had seen them though overall not as enjoyable as my first sighting of them fourteen years earlier.   

I finally went full circle from my first ever blog and first Manchester venue by revisiting Manchester Apollo for the first time in thirteen years since being pummelled by the gentle My Bloody Valentine! There were four of us in attendance and we had a couple of pre-gig aperitifs in the Wine and Wallop in West Didsbury, the future of that chain being currently in doubt, prior to a cab to the venue.

Wine and Wallop. Image Credit DesignMyNight

When we reached the busy bar inside, we discovered they sold beer in two-pint pots which we decided to purchase though it wouldn’t accept my card asking me to input my pin details in. To my chagrin I realised the reason for this was the round cost £52, above the then limit of £50, this equated to an unacceptably brutal price of £6.50 per pint. Come on, Apollo, you can do much better than that!   

The band on stage was the ever-dependable Public Service Broadcasting who were in excellent form, and we had a cracking vantage point near the front.

My pal Marcus is a huge James fan and he persuaded me to attend their Manchester MEN Arena show in December. I had only just managed to purloin some tickets when they were released about a year earlier and was bizarrely sat waiting for an appointment in Stockport Specsavers at the time. I rather rudely had to ask for the lass to delay my appointment slightly as I had finally reached the booking page!

Our significant faux pas was to foolishly book our Covid booster appointments the day before the gig which resulted in Gill being unable to attend and myself feeling distinctly below average. We did consider watching the support act Happy Mondays only from a statistical angle viewpoint as it would have created a new personal record of 34 years between seeing a band as I first saw them in Camden in 1987, but in the end decided not to.

My record thus remains at a 28-year gap with Meat Puppets, however the Loop gig later this year will be just shy of a 32-year gap since witnessing them at my last ever gig at Manchester international 1 in 1990.

We were seated up in the gods with a side on view of the stage, the band were very good value over there 2hr 15-minute set and we watched the last track stood up by the barrier. Marcus headed off to a Christmas works do and I must have resembled a sulky teenage emo as I dragged my weary feet back from the tram stop!

We happened to be out and about of 21st December and sallied into the Manchester Parrs Wood, which will always have a special place in my heart as the first pub we ever visited on that mad day we relocated to Manchester, though there some people rather brazenly sat in ‘our seats’ from that first night! There was a band on stage called Irish Fiddle who performed the seemingly obligatory cover of ‘Dirty Old Town’.