Tag: John Robb

Manchester Venue 16 Academy 3 – Part 2

In totality, I have attended Manchester Academy 3 nineteen times thereby placing it in 6th place on my most populated venues list.  

Early in 2001, I began to become aware of the Strokes who released their terrific first album ‘Is This It’ later that year. I adore the way that record is recorded, sounding like they are in a New York basement, in a good way. I read in the NME they were playing Manchester and was fortunate to obtain four tickets from Piccadilly Records to a much-touted band for a sold-out gig.

John, Uncle George and Gill were in attendance on a filthy Thursday night in June. Walking up the steps to the top floor we passed Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy). He was later ensconced adjacent to us at the bar where a cliched fanboy approached him with the snappy refrain ‘love your album dude…’

The support band was Moldy Peaches followed by the main act who looked nervous initially, but they were excellent and had such admirable poise beyond the tender years.

I was perfectly content in the mosh pit when out of the blue somebody unseen threw a haymaker catapulting me halfway across the pit. Even the band looked taken aback. The assailant must have had a ring on as I had a proper bruise the next day.

Now I am a very chilled chap, but I was incandescent with rage at the sheer injustice of this unwarranted attack. There are unwritten rules for mosh pit etiquette and they were emphatically breached by this muppet!

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The Strokes. Image Credit NME

In April 2005 John Peel faves 65 Days of Static were in town. They had a couple of entries in the previous year’s Festive fifty and were supported by Sons of Slaughter. They were decent live but a tad Mogwai lite.

A couple of years later we headed over to see Goldblade supported by the punk poet Ted Chippington. Everything about that gig was loud including John Cooper Clarke booming out of the speakers in between acts.

Goldblade were thunderous with John Robb vamping it up in his inimitable style. I had imbibed a few sherbets, so when they offered ‘Iggy Pop’ style for punters to enter the fray I grabbed a rare opportunity and leapt on stage with many other like minded folk.

Implausibly, it was even louder up there, and I found myself next to the drummer so proceeded to assist him by slapping away at the drums for one track which was very exhilarating! Another new nickname was christened – ‘Jimmy the Sticks’.

On 22/11/07 an exceedingly rare event happened, namely me driving to a gig! The reason for this unusual anomaly was that we were driving to Centreparcs at Penrith the following day for the weekend.  

We landed in the venue just to catch the last two songs of a rather poor support act Son of Albion and somewhat cringingly for the band you could hear a pin drop when they finished, not even a polite smattering of applause!

The main band was the Raveonettes, a duo from Copenhagen with their fabulous names of Sune Rose Wagner on guitar and Sharon Foo on bass with the assistance of a drum machine. They excel in fuzzed up Mary Chainesque (made up word but describes it perfectly!) sound with gorgeous harmonies but with the additional bite of razor-sharp lyrics.  

To exemplify those contrast shades, they have in their cannon a sugary sounding track in the vein of Strawberry Switchblade, but it then contains contextually the understandingly brutal title ‘Boys Who Rape Should Be Destroyed’. They have produced a suite of excellent albums across their lineage.

They were a captivating experience in the live setting and were immensely enjoyable.

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The Raveonettes. Image Credit Ents 24.

When approaching my 42nd birthday I fancied attending a gig on the day so instigated a search and found that Against Me, a Florida punk band, were playing that night. Uncle George, Dave Keane and I sallied over on the quick train.  

This remains one of the four gigs I have attended on my actual birthday, Neil Young on my 19th and I saw a band in Liverpool and Manchester respectively on my 43rd and 51st birthdays.

They were one of those bands that seem to instil intense loyalty from their fans and that was evident in the fervent atmosphere at the gig. They had an individual sound and it was a fun night.

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.