Tag: Manchester Academy

Manchester Venue 216 – Grafton Arms

Around eighteen months ago Gill had to undergo an unexpected major operation, but mercifully it went as well as could be expected and after a lengthy convalescent period she is now back fighting fit. One by product of this fraught period is that I gained unwanted but extensive knowledge of Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI).

A few years ago, they closed a suite of the outlying suburb establishments such as Pendlebury and Booth Hall hospitals and created a giant central hub. This behemoth of a site contains the aforementioned MRI, Manchester Royal Eye hospital, St Marys hospital and the Royal Manchester Children’s hospital and other education and research facilities.

It is situated within the Chorlton and Medlock suburb between Oxford Road and Upper Brook Street (A34), just beyond the Academy venues and lies opposite Whitworth Park. It is a mile long, and I know that as I have measured it when driving in! It contains two large car parks with commendable staff parking spaces available from the third floor upwards, though it can be a conundrum to obtain a public spot during visiting hours.   

Manchester hospital grounds. Image Credit curtismoore.co.uk

There is also a McDonalds, Starbucks and even an M&S Simply Food there. Several buses weave their way through, and it could be a mini country itself, in the mould of Vatican City! On a musical front the local Lime Art Studio undertake a lunchtime concert series which takes place in the Eye Hospital Atrium. They stage around 100 gigs annually with performances from jazz, classical and world artists.

As you depart the more northerly car park your eyes land on the MRI social club which is for staff members only with a £3 annual subscription. They have live sports and in a rather quaint throwback style they have a DJ (quite often DJ Billko based on their websites) on Payday Friday. Though as I wandered past I did wonder if they have ever had bash em up bands performing live there.

The club is now based in the hospital grounds but has had previous different locations and they also had a football team affiliated to them back in the 1970’s who staged their matches at the allegedly haunted and long closed Barnes Hospital in Cheadle. This was previously a mental asylum which always invokes memories for me of Arkham Asylum in Batman’s Gotham city, an establishment I would not have even sent my worst enemies to!

It was also once the setting for a co-produced Italian/Spanish 1974 zombie B movie called ‘Let Sleeping Corpses Lie’ known locally as ‘Don’t Open The Window’. As ever art then later imitated life with a portion of the film dialogue featuring in the 1997 ‘Wizard in Black’ track by Electric Wizard and Carcass had a song in 2020 called ‘‘The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue’ which matched another alternative English title of the movie.  

Barnes Hospital. Image Credit mark-davis-photography.com

Many hospitals now have a Discharge lounge to provide a waiting area to receive final medication and to await transport home. We were ensconced there for three hours, and it was a remarkable place resembling nothing less than a soap opera.

There was an Asian elder woman shouting out for bespoke service in a foreign language but in the main being roundly ignored, numerous malady discussions and a regular trip advisor chap who was providing extensive reviews of the soup and sandwich options on the wards, sounding not unlike a Half Man Half Biscuit track! There were also exceedingly weatherworn but patient staff, a piano in the corner and then to put the cherry on top the priest wandered in….

Just outside the hospital grounds is the Manchester Grafton Arms public house, which has had the same name since the 1950’s and in those days, it had a reputation as a rough house street corner boozer. It has been a long standing Holts Brewery hostelry, who in 1984, demolished the original and turned it into a much larger establishment.   

It has various music icon murals on the walls within, and they have ‘Jammin’ Thursdays and open mic nights and have also staged ‘Grafton-bury’ live events. I am not a regular frequenter and have never really seen it particularly busy despite its student based location, but for obvious reasons the mention of live music has always intrigued me.

Grafton Arms. Image Credit whatpub.com

I quite often pass on the way home to the bus stop after gigs at the Academy complex and on such occasion after a Slowdive show, I could hear tuneage so wandered in. Alongside a silent TV showing Blackburn playing in the extra time of an FA Cup tie there was a chap called Davie B performing.   

My other visit thus far was in May 2025, again after another gig. Now this was an interesting one as I caught the last three tracks of Pist. I wasn’t previously aware of them but researching on the bus home informed me that they derived from Connecticut and were quite legendary in the punk pantheon. They were on the circuit initially between 1993 and 1996 and reformed in 2023. It seemed a slightly incongruous venue for them, but they were excellent.

Their driving force was Bill Chamberlain who was the guitarist and chief songwriter. I have just rather sadly read that Bill passed away last year and their final ever gig was at the Cowley Club in Brighton, so it appears I witnessed them on their concluding tour. They reminded me of Black Flag, and their last single was ‘Right to Choose’ which exemplified their hardcore sound.    

Manchester Venues 147 to 148 – Royal Northern College of Music

As you progress down Oxford Road towards the Academy venues you reach the traffic light junction with Booth Street West and on that very corner is the Manchester Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). Just beyond there is a recently developed retail area containing a Brewdog outpost and a branch of the omnipresent fast food chain Five Guys.

Across the road from the RNCM for many years resided the Phoenix public house, previously Barney McGrews, situated under the precinct. I can find records of the Phoenix being around since the 1970’s and in those days, it was a punky biker venue where upstairs they held sweaty club nights under the Tangled or Acid Rock monikers.

Phoenix pub. Image Credit manchestersfinest.com

Live music was staged there from 1977 onwards on the Bass Charrington pub rock circuit roster. There are scant details of bands but can find evidence of Aqua, a Burnage High school band, (does that scenario sound familiar?) who played there the following year with Graham Massey of 808 State in their ranks. They are absolutely not to be confused with the other band with the same name who release ‘Barbie Girl’ a couple of decades later!  

It was a renowned student haunt due to its proximity to the universities. It became more of a drum and bass venue in the 1990’s and Clint Boon, Mani and Piccadilly Records used to undertake DJ nights there.  Around the time I visited, it had morphed into an ‘It’s a Scream’ chain pub with bright yellow frontage and was in a very tired state by then. It subsequently closed its doors for the final time in 2011.

The RNCM was officially opened in its current location on 28 June 1973 and was a fusion of the Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM), which opened in 1893 with original principal being Sir Charles Halle and the Northern School of Music, founded in 1920.

Its remit encompasses musical education and contains two thriving public performance venues alongside a smaller recital room and theatre, the latter two spaces are utilised in the main for educational and conference events. The college was subject to a £7.1m refurbishment in November 2014 across all areas including a new lighting rig and sound equipment. Previous alumni naturally contains many illustrious conductors and composers and also Howard Jones!  

RNCM. Image Credit Royal Northern College of Music.

The first venue I will cover is the Royal Northern College of Music Concert Hall which has a fixed seating of either 443 or 598 with an additional balcony setting raising the maximum capacity to 710. The layout ensures that all of the seating encircles the stage in the middle of the room and ensures a good view from all vantage points. They have a constant diverse roster of performances and previous acts to play there include Adele, David Byrne, Hugh Laurie, Halle Orchestra and Jarvis Cocker. Filming has also taken place there for television shows Waterloo Road and Question Time.

My first attendance was in November 2013, and I had an unusual journey there. On the day I needed to attend a workshop in the glamorous location of Telford, thus caught a train from there direct to Manchester and met up with the rest of the crew in the Joshua Brooks public house. I recall we also visited the Sand Bar and naturally gravitated to our usual nearby noodle bar for some tea.

As you enter the RNCM building there is initially a bar and café area before you reach the venue hall at the end of the corridor. They adopt a similar policy to the Royal Albert Hall where you could not take drinks into the venue and if returning from a comfort break you had to wait until the current track finished before you can grab your seat again.

The act that day was the incomparable Mark Lanegan, personally one of my Top 5 favourite vocalists with his gravelly ‘lived in’ unique delivery. He was touring his recent album ‘Imitations’ which featured cover versions of tracks by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Nancy Sinatra and John Cale.

On the night he undertook an excellent version of Bobby Darin’s ‘Mack the Knife’ and Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite of Love’, the latter especially poignant as Lou had recently passed away. I have just read this week of a hugely emotional concert held with guest artists to celebrate what would have been Mark’s 60th birthday, he is sorely missed.

Mark Lanegan. Image Credit mubi.com

I had one other attendance there a couple of years later to see Mercury Rev and I spotted John Robb in the audience. The band were in a particularly noisy mode that evening with some guitar heavy tracks in the set, which suited me down to the ground!

The other venue is the Royal Northern College of Music Theatre which has fixed seating capacity of 600 plus the option to have additional removable pit seats. This is a more traditional ‘cinema style’ setting and I have visited there just the once in October 2023. We went to see a play called New Dawn Fades which chronicles the story of Joy Division which contain live songs with a full band. It is written and directed by Brian Gorman who also takes an acting role as Factory boss Tony Wilson.  It was pretty well made but the second half of it leading to Ian Curtis’s suicide was understandably very bleak viewing.