Dominating a 5.4 acre portion of Oxford Road for many years was the New Broadcasting House (NBH). It was the BBC regional headquarters and contained various departments including BBC Manchester, BBC Northwest, the Philharmonic orchestra and was also furnished with a 180-seat restaurant. Many TV programmes were recorded there including Question of Sport, Dragon’s Den and Red Dwarf.
The old BBC building. Image Credit g7uk.com
It was originally built in 1975 before being subsequently demolished in 2012, when lock stock and barrel everything relocated to Media City at Salford Quays. During this period one of the Kro branches (Kro 2) was located next door and served as a sister venue to the one further down the strip opposite Manchester University. I visited there many times pre and post gigs and imbibed a few cold ones in their large outdoor area. Its closure coincided with the shutting down of NBH and it is now a Tesco Express.
The land remained sparse and derelict for many years before a new development suddenly sprung up, seemingly overnight. This has become known as the Circle Square development and encompassed within this area are student accommodations, office spaces and communal seating within the open plan Symphony Park in the central portion.
Also catered for are the highly important food and drink options, the former including Hello Oriental where I have sampled their wares a few times. The latter incorporates a Federal coffee outlet and a branch of the North Taproom brewery.
Circle Square. Image Credit circlesquaremanchester.com
On the musical front, there is a 1000 capacity venue which has recently opened called Ambers. They are mainly a DJ based venue and have regular late events across the two function rooms.
The other venue that appeared there was Manchester Canvas which had a day and night concept. It was created by the BeSixth team who owned two established music locales in East London, namely Oval Space and Pickle Factory which are sister venues, located opposite each other in Bethnal Green. They commendably became the first two multi-use venues in the UK to eliminate single use bottles and cups, and the concept of all three establishments was to create a blank canvas experimental ethos.
There was a ground floor cocktail bar and South American influenced restaurant and function rooms for hire and weekly yoga classes. They also launched a fairly unique membership for under 30’s costing £15 with perks such as free gigs.
The venue appeared ‘as if by magic’ on the gig listings in June 22 in much the same way that the Soup Kitchen did many years earlier, causing me to initially scratch my head regarding its actual location, but the ‘venue bloodhound’ in me soon tracked it down!
My initial interaction was visiting the bar whilst on the way to another gig. I engaged in discussion with the friendly barman regarding the new complex and he generously offered a private tour, which we readily accepted. Downstairs from the bar were two separate but interlinked rooms, the second complete with comfy sofas and a balcony and it was an impressive space even when empty.
This latter space was classified as Manchester Canvas 2, which had a capacity of 200 and where I had booked some tickets for the South London punks Snuff in April 24. However, rather unexpectedly the entire venue closed, and that show was relocated to the Breadshed. Thus, this venue was then added to the ‘Jimmy missing venue’ list where either the venue had closed prior to the gig, or I could not actually attend the event despite having tickets. Previous entries on this list include the Hacienda, Fairfield Club and Jilly’s Rockworld.
The larger room containing Manchester Canvas 1 had space for 550 punters and had hosted events featuring Liam Fray, Happy Mondays, Dutch Uncles and the Warehouse Project. I attended just the once in September 2023 on a filthy rainy night.
Coach Party on stage at Canvas. Image Credit Aesthete.
The room downstairs on entry had a bar to the left and the stage to the right and the already traditional sticky floor in between. The band that evening was Coach Party, a four-piece indie rock band from Isle of Wight and they had an innate quirkiness to them which I found very enjoyable.
One of the band members Steph Norris used to be a manager of Black Sheep, one of the few music venues on the island. They have since been followed by fellow ‘Caulkheads’ Wet Leg who are making their own large strides in the music industry.
The postscript this week is that this is my 100th Manchester article, a long way away from the very first one that I posted about Manchester Apollo nearly six years ago!
