Tag: London Camden Dingwalls

Gigs Abroad Part 29 Cologne – Part 2

As Cologne was the first German city I had ever visited I always pined to make a return. That trip had also created a chain reaction of visiting many other locations in the country with the current count now at nine cities where I have stayed and with several others visited on our regular days trips when we are away. Thus, it transpired that one sunny day Gill and I were sat foe r we could fit in another cheeky weekend away. Cologne was entered into the possible destinations and was then chosen and subsequently booked.

Now, you may surmise that I manufactured the next part of the story to my advantage but that is genuinely not the case. A few days after we concreted the trip, Gill suggested in passing to check whether there happened to be any interesting gigs taking place when we were there.

My previous experience in this regard on earlier trips is that we always seem to be a week early or late for an interesting band, however that was about to dramatically change. I think I may have muttered the words ‘Ye Gods’ and nearly fell off my chair when I saw that the mighty Mogwai were playing the final date of their current European tour on our first night in the city. It was naturally a ‘Shay’ given that we had to attend and tickets were purchased forthwith.

Bez and Shaun Ryder back in the day. Image Credit etsy.com

Prior to boarding there was a star stop moment with the ubiquitous Shaun Ryder holding court in the circular bar in Terminal 3. It was the first time I had eyeballed him face to face since watching the Happy Mondays in a support slot at Camden Dingwalls in October 1987. He was being regularly approached for selfies before he pottered off for a flight to Nantes.

The only remaining challenge was our scheduled afternoon flight and arrival time on the Saturday created the potential scenario where any delay would put our attendance in doubt. We landed a smidge late and it took us a little while to locate and arrive at our digs, though they were handily placed adjacent to a S-Bahn stop.

The gig was taking place at Cologne Live Music Hall (locally known as ‘LMH’ or just ‘Live), which had a previous life as part of the Heinz Strunck & Co machine factory before morphing into a bespoke music venue in 1990. It retains elements of its industrial heritage, one feature being the use of the old cranes.  

It has a capacity of 1800 and has hosted performances in the past from Pearl Jam, Death Cab for Cutie and Chvrches. Many have been recorded live for the music TV show Rockpalast (Rock Palace), which is a German institution and has been running since October 1974 where the featured band on their first night was ELO.

ELO. Image Credit listal.com

The venue was in the Ehrenfeld area of town and took some finding as it was buried away down a dark back street, a little reminiscent of the White Hotel location in Salford. We had not had time to eat, and the local food options were rather sparse, and we even considered the slightly desperate option of Burger King. I am glad however we did not as we finally located the Music Hall about 20.10, and we were informed that the band were hitting the stage at 20.15!

The gig gods were clearly in a benevolent mood as in the courtyard there was a beer point and a food stall that despite approaching closing time for the night proceeded to throw together a ‘bits and bob’s’ tea for us. Thankfully it was a warm night resulting in the back door of the venue being wide open. This then created the novel scenario of us grazing and imbibing on the picnic benches whilst we could clearly hear the reaction of the crowd and Stuart Braithwaite’s perennial introductory words of ‘Good Evening, we are Mogwai from Glasgow’. We listened to the first three tracks before heading indoors to actually see them as well.  

The Music Hall picnic benches. Image Credit koelntourismus.de

It remains a cash only venue which I find rather refreshing, and again fortuitously I happened to be holding a batch of euros. It was Gill’s second ever Mogwai gig and she thoroughly enjoyed them, much more so than her first one in the cramped environs of Manchester Albert Hall. It was a terrific venue and an appreciative respectful audience, and they finished the set with a thunderous ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’.  Afterwards we headed back into town and sampled some Kolsch in one of the beer houses near the main train station

On the Sunday we visited the Cathedral and walked the city including the river paths. We did at one stage become trapped in an extremely busy children’s fair that seemed to go on for ever, as soon as we had navigated our way past we headed to the hostelry. On the Monday we grabbed a late Schnitzel lunch before which completed a fine trip before we headed off for our flight home.

London Eleventh and Twelfth Trips

I have travelled a few times down to London with work and at one stage was visiting a company who were based nearby to Moorgate station and adjacent to London Finsbury Square. In 1784 the Square witnessed the first successful attempt of a hot air balloon flight and there is also a memorial installed there to commemorate the 1975 Moorgate tube crash where 43 people perished.  

Finsbury Square. Image Credit londonplanning.org.uk

In the summer of 2017 after leaving a meeting I was headed back to the tube for the journey home and heard music playing. In the early 20th century, the square was home to the London Royal Yeomanry and on that day the Band of Royal Yeomanry (Inns of Court & City Yeomanry) were playing a gig.

Their regimental history dates to 1548 and the band formed in 1961. They perform at many events, including D-Day memorials in Normandy and 6 Nations matches at Twickenham. They still maintain their original ceremonial uniform of French blue jacket and trousers, chain mailed shoulders, George boots and spurs and Chapka helmets.

Band of Royal Yeomanry Band. Image Credit flickr.com

I have always been a huge fan of Hold Steady and have now seen them nine times in total and they sit in bronze medal position of my bands most seen list. That figure would undoubtedly be higher if not for the fact that they have not played a Manchester date since 19/10/14. The reason for this dearth is that they have chosen since then to just play an annual three-day residency in London with no other regional dates.

As a result, we decided to make a pilgrimage down to the smoke in 2019 as I was missing my Hold Steady fix! Their base for their seasonal jaunt is in the thriving Camden suburb of the city. I met Uncle George and John Dewhurst off the train, and we dropped our bags at the handy location of Euston Premier Inn.  We then headed off on the Northern tram line to find our first hostelry, the Dingwalls pub on Camden Lock overlooking the canal.

My first visit to that establishment was in 1987 when I saw Brilliant Corners supported by a yet undiscovered Happy Mondays. The pub has certainly gone through a regentrification phase since then, but they still have live music there on a regular basis.  We also had a foray to the Old Eagle public house and to refuel we hit a local pie shop but there were unfortunately no butter pies on sale!

The Hold Steady show took place at London Camden Electric Ballroom. The Ballroom is a long-established venue and has been in place for 80 years. It began its days as an Irish club where the crooner Jim Reeves used to play and adopted its current name in 1978. There used to be a weekend indoor market staged there and was in place until 2015. It survived potential demolition in 2004 when there was a proposal to redevelop Camden Town underground station.

Camden Electric Ballroom. Image Credit Electric Ballroom

There are two dance floors and four bars contained within and it has a capacity of 1500 and there was good viewing of the stage from any vantage point.  They launched straight in with the vibrant ‘Stuck Between Stations’ and didn’t let up for the next 24 tracks, it was another thoroughly enjoyable performance.

It was also appropriate as a milestone event as it was Uncle George’s and I 500th gig together, a mere 32 years since our first, a staggeringly good Pogues show at Manchester International 2. Our 100th was also a belter with Black Rebel Motorcycle playing the Mill, a small club in Preston.  

After the set had finished, George and I progressed onto London Camden Monarch for number 501. The original Monarch prior to 2000 was in another area of Camden which then became the music venue Barfly. The new Monarch opened in 2008 in a new site on Chalk Farm Road and the DJ on the opening night was none other than Amy Winehouse!

The pub subsequently closed in 2020 but reopened the following year under the new moniker Monarchy retaining the live music in a downstairs events space called the Vault.  On the night we visited a local indie band called Stay Club took to the stage.