Tag: Hatchie

Manchester Venues 98 to 101

As I am sure regular readers of this blog can attest, I have always been a huge advocate of attending Manchester venues. This is even though for my first 49 years on this Earth I was living in Preston, which has involved an extraordinary number of train ride commutes, quite often in challenging circumstances due to Northern Train’s incompetence. Don’t even start me on their brazen temerity relating to a staggeringly unjust penalty notice I received from them recently for making the ‘catastrophic’ error of buying two singles instead of the intended purchase of an open return for virtually the same price!   

My first Manchester venue back in the mists of time in 1985 was the Apollo with the 10th being the short-lived Planet K in the Northern Quarter which I first visited in 1999. The 25th followed in 2011 with the Castle and the 50th was the Sound Control downstairs club venue in 2013.

The dramatic spike in numbers of venues visited on the numbers between 25 to 50 was in no small part to my attendance at several multi venue wristband events including Dot to Dot and Sounds from the Other city (SFTOC) festivals and it became a personal mission around then to see how high I could increase the overall number to.

When we relocated to Manchester in 2017, I had at that stage reached 76 venues and I knew the much sought after century was a question of when not if and I have since rolled on to run past over 150 and counting Manchester venues.   

At SFTOC they utilise a central gathering area of the Regent trading Estate located behind Islington Mill where they have drink and food outlets and have acts performing in the Manchester Regent Trading Estate Car Park. In 2017 I saw the local artist Dub Smugglers and the following year witnessed an act called Kiss Me Again.    

Manchester Regent Trading Estate Car Park. Image Credit soundsfromtheothercity.com

In a more recent year, they based the whole festival site around the Regent Estate, I didn’t attend that year, but I saw the feedback was unfavourable as punter’s preference was to have a suite of venues dotted all around, and they have not since repeated that experiment.

The other three venues in the vicinity are very novel as they based in the warehouse units which I am assuming are normally working areas at other times and can imagine they could have been fine sites for Acid House gatherings back in the day!

The first and largest one we visited was Manchester Unit 5 Regent Trading Estate. The first band I saw there was HMLTD, an art punk band from London town whose original moniker was Happy Meal Ltd. They were a vibrant bunch, and their garb embraced the 1980’s New Romantic era. The following year, I witnessed another London jazz infused artist called Laura Misch.        

HMLTD. Image Credit nme.com

When in attendance at the SFTOC 2018 event I reached my 100th Manchester venue which was a big deal for me as it had taken 33 years to achieve that aim, the venue itself was Manchester Unit 2 Regent Trading Estate. I was hoping and praying it would not be a limp act to celebrate this milestone and thankfully the music gods were smiling on me!

The band was an upcoming Australian artist called Hatchie and her backing band and they produced a terrific slab of dream pop which was perfect for the occasion. I attended the festival again this year and we saw an excellent set from the C-86 infused shoegazers The Early Mornings, who turned out to be the band of the day.  

Hatchie. Image Credit vrtxmag.com

The other area was the smallest one on the Reform Radio Stage within Manchester Unit 4 Regents Trading Estate where I have seen Bennett is Coming and a Spanish soul singer with African roots called Femme Fatene.

2022 Gigs – Part 1

These articles will cover the gigs I have seen in 2022 that occurred in venues already covered in previous blogs.

An unwelcome and hugely disagreeable blast of Covid blighted Christmas 2021 and half of January for me, and as I am sure many others can relate to, has left me with a legacy of sporadic health dips since then. However, what the pandemic patently illustrated is that life is just too damn short, so I have continued to throw myself readily into attending as many gigs as feasibly possible!

In late January 2022, for the first time in my life I was called up on jury service. On my first day another attendee sat in my numbered seat resulting in a number change and in a ‘swinging doors’ moment they had a gentle one-day trial and were dismissed from service whilst I was thrown into a deeply unpleasant 11-day trial complete with emotional subject matter.

The Jury Room. Image Credit Coral Gables Art Cinema.

The other jury members were a fascinating cross section of society and I got pally with one chap as he was also a huge muso and regular gig goer and we have remained in touch and as a result he is obviously stored in my phone under the name of Barry Jury!

There have been a couple of high-profile trials recently at Manchester Crown Court, namely Olivia Pratt Korbel and Lucy Letby. The latter being a 10-month event and I have the utmost sympathy for anyone involved and impacted by that trial, including the jury members, who were understandably excused afterwards from jury service for the rest of their lives.

As they had been refurbishing the main court, my case was heard in the slightly strange environs of the Hilton Hotel but located fortuitously for myself right next to Deansgate station. As ever, I had my beady eye on a potential gig around that time but didn’t want to attend if the trial was still running. When it became evident that we would be delivering our verdict on 16/02/22 I prepared for a gig that evening.

It was however a chaotic travel day with high winds disrupting the metro and I had a catch a train in and metro home. Whilst walking home I contacted Uncle George and confirmed and purchased some tickets. Within the hour I was back on the train into town, and we headed on to Manchester Yes Pink Room.

The band playing was Nordic Giants, an unusual instrumental post rock duo who are adorned with masks on stage and have intriguing cinema shorts playing in the background, I thoroughly enjoyed their performance. The night predictably ended in a train cancellation and a resultant bus home; I slept well that night!    

Nordic Giants on stage. Image Credit Laut.

I attended another gig there in September to see Harriette Pilbeam, an Australian singer/songwriter who performs under the stage name Hatchie. It was on a Sunday night, and I ended up attending on my own so made the very unusual decision to drive, making it only about the fifth gig where I have done so. I am glad I made the effort to drag myself out as she was in good form.      

Also, in September I headed to their other venue Manchester Yes Basement to see Ducks Ltd, who hail from Toronto in Canada, and they are firmly in the Wedding Present mould, and they have also covered ‘Head On’ by Jesus and Mary Chain which can only be good things in my book!

Ducks Ltd. Image Credit entertainment-factor.blogspot.com

At the gig I finally met up with my first Twitter pals Sharon and Keith in a face-to-face environment who were very fine company. After the show Marcus, Paul and I rather shambolically stayed in the nearby Font Bar until the early hours, it was my last attendance at the bar as it closed forever a month later.