Tag: John Peel

Manchester Venue 135 – Bread Shed

On the opposite side of Grosvenor Street from the Deaf Institute venue you will find the Sand Bar. This is one of the many hostelries within the Oxford Road corridor, but it is a singular Manchester institution and one of my fave places to visit. It came into existence in the mid-90’s and I have been attending there for pre-gig drinks for many years. It is housed in an old industrial mill with an olde world feel and has an unprepossessing and almost hidden entrance. They have always served fine beers and was the first place that I was aware of that stocked continental lagers and was the location of my first sampling of the Bavarian Schneider Weisse wheat beer!  

Manchester Sand Bar. Image Credit flickr.com

On the next corner is another watering hole with the previously very simplistic name of ‘The Pub’. It is housed in a Grade II listed building, and they regularly have quiz nights and open mic nights, this one being more of a sporadically visited hostelry. A recent artistic addition to their side wall in May this year was a large mural of Kurt Cobain. At the back of this pub for many years there was a nightclub called the Zoo, now a singular music venue called Manchester Bread Shed.

I first visited the venue in its Zoo nightclub phase as part of the Dot to Dot festival event in 2013 and the act on stage was Beans on Toast which is the stage name of folk singer Jay McAllister who derives from Braintree in Essex. He is a prolific musician and has recorded fifteen albums since 2005 and has a liking for releasing them on his birthday of 1st December.

The Bread Shed. Image Credit designmynight.com

To be honest, he was not my cup of Yorkshire Tea though there were many punters in there who were lapping up his performance. On a personal front, my day improved dramatically immediately after as I caught a startlingly good Wolf Alice set across the road in the Deaf Institute.

In August 2017 the site rebooted as the Bread Shed and the owners Stonegate Pub Company spent £450k on upgrades. The unusual name derived from the history of the building as in the 1900’s it was the Duncan & Foster bakery site. This was also reflected in the attached pub revising its name to the Flour & Flagon. It was set up as an events space with a 480 capacity and beyond the live music they also reinstated the XS Malarkey comedy night that had for a short period been rehomed at the Comedy Store.   

Prior to attending a Fontaines DC gig at Gorilla in 2019 I cheekily blagged my way into the venue and caught a portion of a pretty woeful Iron Maiden tribute who were at the same low calibre level of the ‘legendary’ Damascus gig (my third ever gig) at Preston Clouds in 1984!   

My next visit was in October 23 where Marcus and Anita attended with Gill and I. Marcus had some ticket issues on the door but managed to negotiate his way in. The band we had come to see was the Boo Radleys who I was witnessing after a 29-year sabbatical as I had not seen them since two gigs in 1994. They were on a rotating joint headline tour and were the support on the night and were in excellent form with the fabulous ‘Lazarus’ being performed towards the end of their set.  

The headliners were Cud who are an electro indie band from Leeds who I had surprisingly never seen before. They formed in 1987, broke up in 1995, but reformed again in 2006. In their first incarnation they undertook a cover of Hot Chocolate’s ‘You Sexy Thing’ which garnered a number 20 position in John Peel’s festive fifty in 1988. Their lead singer is Carl Puttnam who can be marmite to some people, and I honestly didn’t approach them with high expectations. However, these chaps could play and were seriously good fun, reminding me of the vibrancy of Electric Six’s live performances.   

Cud band. Image Credit 3loopmusic.com

My latest visit was in April this year to see the ska/punk sounds of Snuff for the eighth time. Just when I was thinking the audience were very quiet on the first three tracks and not resembling an archetypal Snuff crowd they then played ‘Soul Limbo’ cricket theme, and the place went ballistic! So much so the instantly created moshpit had a kick back and Uncle George was knocked back onto the floor and temporarily flattened, but he is literally made of Teflon so bounced straight back up again! I had a rare foray into the pit myself for a few tracks and as ever thoroughly enjoyed their show!    

Gigs from Abroad – Part 15

In the years from 2016 to 2018 we decided with some friends to undertake an annual jaunt to visit the Christmas markets in Germany.  In the first year we headed to Stuttgart for my debut appearance there, and it was appropriately exceptionally cold. The city is the largest in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and is in close proximity to the Black Forest and is also Germany’s ‘car capital’. Famous previous residents include the footballer Andreas Muller and the current Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

The Stuttgarter Weihnachtsmarkt is one of the largest and oldest Christmas markets in Europe comprising of over 280 stalls in the city centre. It contained an absolutely superb model railway, an artefact I am always eternally fascinated by. Our accommodation was next to the Sudheimer Platz and in the corner of the square was Germany’s first ever funicular built in 1929. It is virtually still in its original format including the old cable car which is in itself a listed building! It takes you on an interesting 550 metre journey on a 28% gradient up to the hilltop area of Waldfriedhof.  

Stuttgart Christmas Market. Image Credit europenbestdestinations.com

In 2018 we returned and this time desired to head out on a train trip to another market and Esslingen was referenced to us as a good place to visit. The market town is located on the River Neckar and lies about 9 miles southeast of Stuttgart and one of its twin cities is Neath in Port Talbot.  When there we traversed up and down the considerable number of lung busting wooden steps to reach Esslinger Burg, the old fortress which once protected the city and the accompanying panoramic views.    

The main rationale for our visit to the town was to attend their famous Medieval Christmas market and the olde world ‘Game of Thrones’ vibe of the event was very enjoyable. It felt novel as alongside the obligatory food and drink and traders selling other wares they had jugglers, minstrels, acrobats and fire magicians. There was also musical entertainment in two separate areas thus we saw a band called Oro on Esslingen Market Stage 1 and a chap called Gudbrugger Goldstein on Esslingen Market Stage 2.   

In the middle year we headed to Heidelberg, and this was the second time I had visited the city.  Heidelberg has considerable history in that around 400,000 years ago ‘Heidelburg Man’ died in a nearby town and his jawbone was discovered in 1907. It was subsequently confirmed that his remains were the earliest evidence of human life in Europe.

The city is in the same large state as Stuttgart and is in the warmest region of the country and also contains Germany’s oldest University, founded in 1386. The city hosted the 1972 Summer Paralympics and famous residents include Friedrich Ebert, the first ever president of Germany, racing driver Nelson Piquet Jr, German football manager Hansi Flick, musician Jackson Browne and actor Michael Fassbender of 12 Mens A Slave and X-Men fame. They were also referenced in Harry Potter as having a high quality Quidditch team called Heidelberg Harriers!

We encountered another funicular which is used by 1m passengers annually. It heads up to Konigstuhl where on our visit we encountered some snow showers, the halfway point is the Castle where we took a break for a beer in the huge bar room.  

Heidelberg Funicular. Image Credit klook.com

Our train trip that weekend was over to Mannheim, which is an anachronism for a German city as the streets are built on a grid pattern (like Glasgow) and are numbered accordingly, this quirk results in its nickname of the Square City. One more famous Mannheim resident to cite here is one of the finest ever tennis players Steffi Graf.

I recall having a sally around a huge department store where there was a comfortable seated area showing Saturday afternoon football on several TV screens which unsurprisingly was populated by primarily the male population! Whilst in attendance at the Mannheim Market we saw the Mannheim Brass Orchestra.

On our last night in Heidelberg, we made the catastrophic error of imbibing too much vino tinto creating a perilous journey the following day. Two further challenges abounded, the first that it is a 50-mile commute back to the airport involving a couple of changes on the rails.

The second was the below freezing weather resulting in us waiting on the runway for an interminable time at the vast Frankfurt Airport before fortunately being given the all clear to depart. Prior to setting of we then had the strange and unfamiliar experience of the plane going through the equivalent of a car wash to clear off the snow. We had a very early night when we arrived home that evening!

Before I depart this week, I want to pay my own homage to Steve Albini who died this week at the tender young age of 61. He was an excellent music producer and undertook the task by concentrating solely on enhancing the band which resulted in hardening Wedding Present’s sound and creating my favourite Pixies album ‘Surfer Rosa’, amongst many other achievements.

Steve Albini on stage. Image Credit rollingstone.com

I caught his later band Shellac once, but my abiding memory is witnessing the intensity of Big Black when I saw them on their penultimate ever British date at Manchester Boardwalk in 1987. The gig gods smiled on us as we only heard about the date on John Peel four days before and queued at the venue at 8pm to obtain one of the last remaining tickets, an unforgettable night!