Tag: Lancaster Library

Manchester Venue 129 – Cathedral

In 1215, Manchester Cathedral was built in the centre of the city with additions to the original design being built at periodic intervals over the next three centuries. It survived damage in the Civil War, the IRA bombing in 1996 and the Second World War, the latter causing extensive destruction that required a further 20 years to restore. Following the Arena bombing in May 2017 the Glade of Light memorial was built outside to commemorate the victims. The church is currently one of the fifteen Grade I listed buildings in Manchester and is situated behind the famous Sinclair’s Oyster Bar.

Manchester Cathedral. Image Credit hoteles.com

In the last 15 years the Cathedral has branched out and begun to showcase live music. My first attendance there was in 2012 where I encountered my pal Rick Clegg and his daughter Charlotte on the train over as they were heading on to an alternate Vaccines gig at Manchester Ritz. We parlayed in the pub over a couple of scoops and then headed separate ways.

A couple of years earlier I had attended my debut ecclesiastical event at St Phillips Church in Salford when watching Wooden Shjips. This was a similar set up with slightly more challenges in regard to viewing the stage due to the proliferation of pillars.

The band performing was Dirty Three, an Australian instrumental rock band I had seen once previously 12 years earlier. Their first ever gig took place on ANZAC Day on 25th April 1992 where Warren Ellis utilised a guitar pick up to his violin which created their trademark feedback driven sound which is a sight to behold when they are in their full flow of 10 minute opuses.

Dirty Three. Image Credit fromthearchives.com

Warren was born in Ballarat, Victoria, coincidentally a town Gill and I stayed in when we visited Australia, and he has also been a dual member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since 1994.  They are a terrific and thunderous live act, and on the night, the journalist/musician John Robb was also in attendance, with whom I had a decent chat.  

The second and currently latest visit was as part of the Manchester Dot to Dot festival in 2016. As ever, my gig ‘addiction’ resulted in a co-ordinated effort to attend all of the twenty geographically disparate city centre venues during the day, which was a logistical challenge.

Never one who has been able to embrace Gordon Gekko’s ethos of ‘lunch is for wimps’; a food stop was taken at the excellent chippy that used to be located at the city end of Oldham Street. This was immediately prior to heading over to the Cathedral, which for the record was number eleven on the venue hit list. The fish and chips were still being munched as I stood outside, and I could hear the band ending their set.

My instant thoughts were that I had made a major tactical error, and this would forever be classed as a ‘missed gig’, but I wandered in any way to pray for a miracle! Due to the nature of the event, there was very strict time periods allocated to each set, but remarkably in this case the gig gods were smiled benignly on me as the band returned to the stage for an unprecedented encore of one additional song.

The act on stage was Sundara Karma, who are an indie band from Reading. I had caught them very early in their career as they had only formed the previous year and were just at that stage leaving secondary school and it was five years prior to releasing their debut album ‘Youth is Only Ever Fun in Retrospect’. They were obviously acquiring some hype as they incited a very enthusiastic crowd reaction. With the near miss thus averted I progressed on to achieve the full twenty venues, ending the gig quest in Manchester Texture in the Northern Quarter.  

Sundara Karma. Image Credit schonmagazine.com

Gill and I had tickets for one other event there which was to see Low in April 2022 however we ended up being double booked so therefore could not attend. This was seven months before Mimi Parker’s tragic untimely death leaving me with memories of previous great Low shows I had been fortunate to witness, particularly at Manchester Hop and Grape and Lancaster Library.

Lancaster Venues 14 to 16

My tale of our debut attendance at the 2023 Lancaster Music Festival continues as we left the Pub and traversed down Market Street to the historic Lancaster Market Square which dates all the way back to 1193. On one corner of the square resides the Lancaster City Museum, which is contained within a Grade II listed building. This sits alongside Lancaster Library where I have previously attended many fine gigs as they were the forerunner of the utterly commendable Get it Loud in the Library scheme.

Lancaster Market Square with the Library building to the right. Image Credit Geograph Britain and Ireland.

On the festival day this was one of the central hubs with food stalls selling tasty Indian snacks that you didn’t know you needed until you sampled them. There was a stage located on the square and the first band we saw had the distinctly unappetising moniker of Do You Like Worms? They are an acoustic duo who are based in Lancaster and home record their own material.

The second act was the Baybeat Street Band, they evolved from and are the longest standing project of the More Music education and music charity. This initiative is an Arts Council organisation and was established in 1993 with the primary purpose of delivering workshops, training, performances and festivals across the Northwest of England area.  The carnival band play regularly at festivals around the local area and around the country and have a pot pourri of influences including Brazilian, Cuban, North African and Caribbean sounds.

It was a rather Baltic day, and emergency visits were made by members of the festival crew to Mountain Warehouse and Primark to purchase various forms of funky knitwear to keep the icicles at bay. The latter named shop is located in the Lancaster Marketgate Shopping Centre and next to their entrance the full personnel of the Haffner Orchestra were all squeezed in place to play a novel afternoon set.

Haffner Orchestra performing at the festival. Image Credit thebayhealthfestivals.org.uk

They are Lancaster’s very own symphony orchestra, and they are composed of a mix of amateurs and professionals from across the region.  They undertake three regular shows each year however they generously included an additional performance this year specifically for the festival. Alex Robinson is the current musical director and conductor who also plays a suite of musical instruments himself, but this was his debut performance at the helm.  

The content of their performance related to Mozart’s 40th symphony in G Minor where they broke the music down into components and crafted it all back together alongside periodic commentary updates from the conductor. Additionally, members of the audience, many children, were offered the rare and exciting opportunity to literally take up the baton and conduct the orchestra themselves.

I looked around at one point and identified that all my crew had disappeared, so took the chance and headed off on my ‘Jack Jones’ to locate a bonus gig and venue as there were so many to be picked off. So, I headed off again further up Market Street followed by a right turn into Penny Street and after Shoe Zone took a left into Diggles Ffrances Passage, one of the many old ginnels in Lancaster.

This leads out onto Gage Street directly in front of the Tap House pub on the right and the Lancaster Collegian Club on the left.  The building is home to a private working men’s clubthat can be hired for functions,and I have walked past many times without a reason to visit, but today I did! Up a set of stairs brought you to the traditional function room with trestle tables. On stage was a hometown singer/songwriter Nicky Snell who was undertaking her second set of the day. Nicky is also an artist and chairs songwriting workshops alongside exhibiting her paintings.

Lancaster Collegian Club. Image Credit whatpub.com