Tag: Husker Du

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 2 – International 1

Aah, let me count the ways I loved this venue: –

  • Low strung roof which assisted greatly with the acoustics and created a fabulously sweaty communal venue when busy
  • Bars either side serving Colt 45 or Schlitz
  • Responsive DJ playing fab tunes when requested and memory tells me or tricks me that they played Long Ryders ‘Looking for Lewis and Clarke’ every visit
  • Loos at the side of the stage to allow you to swiftly rejoin the moshpit
  • Like minded brethren in the audience
  • Main bands rarely came on before 11 and of consistently high calibre
  • Cheeky little food hatch with un nutritious snacks to soak up the ale
  • All in all, what’s not to like?

I visited 20 times between 1985 and 1989, the venue closed around 1992. In my new Manchester pad I live a couple of miles away from the old site. It is now a Turkish deli/supermarket. I always had pretensions if winning the lottery to reopen the venue, but my odd £25 prizes are clearly not enough to achieve that aim.

The hallowed venue now! – Image Credit Jimmy Crossthwaite

My first visit was to see Hüsker Dü with the prior knowledge we wouldn’t get home and involved train and a fair bus ride as it was on the outskirts of town in Longsight. Whilst queueing up lead singer Bob Mould clattered out the doors past us to buy some cigs in the small newsagent next door which was exciting for us avid fans. They were mighty fine in front of a sparsely attended venue. The remainder of the night was trekking back into town to  Victoria and crashing in the waiting room while they loaded the paper trains before catching the first train back at 6am. Being a durable 17 year old I recall a couple of hours kip, on to Preston North End to sell programmes, watch the match and then inevitably out again that night. A few years after I became friends with another chap who was there and also napped on the station prior to a trip back to Blackpool (Spig, if you are reading this).

There was always an obliging driver in the crew to ferry us there before trains became the regular route to Manchester gigs. There was always a couple of aperitifs as we always travelling in via Holts and Boddingtons pubs in Prestwich, I believe the Friendship Inn is still standing and the afore mentioned Holts was 64p a pint (cheapest beer in Britain!).

Some of my favourite early gigs were here, notably astonishing performances from Lone Justice (what a set of pipes Marie McKee has and a fantastic cover of Velvets ‘Sweet Jane’), 10,000 Maniacs (stunning vocal also from Natalie Merchant) , Hüsker Dü again and the first ever gig in England for Meat Puppets in 1987 supported by the Inca Babies.

Picture shows the infamous Lone Justice gig on 20/02/1987. Image Credit radiox.co.uk

There was a dream joint headlining tour from Throwing Muses and Pixies. I read somewhere that it was something like the Pixies 26th ever gig and Black Francis cut a very menacing presence howling like a Banshee with me joyously bouncing round the moshpit despite having at that age an ever present nose bleed!

Other bands seen were Shop Assistants, a polished Robert Cray, That Petrol Emotion, Proclaimers and Rhythm Sisters, joyous Bhundu Boys (twice and once with a compelling hangover after a quiet night at the infamous Strawberry Duck at Entwistle!), Screaming Blue Messiahs and Wild Flowers, Wonderstuff and Darling Buds, Triffids (laconic Aussies) and Waltones, Amayenga and finally a thunderous Loop.

Flyer from 1986 – see Wonderstuff and Voice of The Beehive dates. Image Credit mdm.archive.co.uk

One notable exception was Green on Red and Steve Earle where it was just one of those nights where the gig didn’t work, the set was dull and to top it off the transport home had been vandalised and was bereft of a coat and a back seat window so was bloody freezing all the way home especially for Dave Keane in the back seat!

Two remaining standouts were Voice of the Beehive which was the first gig I attended with my then girlfriend, now wife Gill. The other was a carload of us attending the Stiff Little Fingers comeback tour on 18/12/87 which despite being sub-tropical outside remains one of the hottest gigs I have ever attended with a maximum of two songs in the moshpit before an obligatory rest station on the DJ’s steps.

Despite not attending a gig there in 30 years, and over 900 gigs since it still sits proudly as my 5th most attended venue.