Tag: Manchester Albert Hall

Manchester Venues 149 to 150 – New Century Hall

Of the four main city centre train stations, Victoria would probably be my least attended as it has always been slightly on the wrong side of the tracks for me! Now if you depart the station down the approach heading alongside the tram tracks towards Shudehill Interchange but deviate marginally to the left down Hanover Street, you reach the Sadler’s Cat public house.

Sadler’s Cat pub. Image Credit secretmanchester.com

The Sadler’s was originally known as the Pilcrow which was purpose built as part of a regeneration programme commitment by the Co-operative Society, following the demolition of the Crown and Cushion pub to make way for a new public road. The current name reflects the commemoration of the very site of the first hot air balloon flight in 1785 and the pilot being one James Sadler who took his feline friend with him on the trip! The pub is contained within the NOMA complex and is now owned by the Cloudwater brewery and is a good basking spot in the summer with a suite of outside tables.

Staying with the Co-op theme, across the square from the hostelry you find the New Century Hall which was built as their 1000 capacity Insurance Society building in 1962 and sits adjacent to New Century House. They had many major acts play there in the 1960’s including Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Kinks. There is also an anecdote of the Jimi Hendrix Experience performing there in 1966 and a young John Cooper Clarke being denied entry as he was not wearing the obligatory tie, despite being bedecked in Fred Perry and a striped sports coat, bouncers eh! 

John Cooper Clarke. Image Credit pinterest.com

It is a three-storey building with the basement containing the Access Creative College where you can obtain degrees in music and gaming. The ground floor houses the Manchester New Century Food Hall where I first visited in December 2022 on a Christmas works do where we partook some tucker from one of the many food vendors and watched the England v Wales World Cup match. Where the big screen showing the match was located, there is normally a stage, and I have seen a couple of local singers perform there.

Upstairs from there is the Manchester New Century Hall which on first sight I was instantly impressed by with the wood surrounds and tasteful lighting. Even when busy it remains an accessible venue with ability to scoot down the sides to obtain a spot nearer to the stage. I can see myself in the future checking their listings from a venue viewpoint ahead of many others in the city where they become an almighty scrum when reaching capacity, the Albert Hall being a case in point.

My first attendance was in May 2023 with Gill and our good friends and fellow rabble rousers Jo and Paul. We had a couple of drinks around the Kampus area near Piccadilly and in the Northern Quarter. The band we were going to see was The Beths from Auckland in New Zealand. They were promoting their hugely recommended third album ‘Expert in a Dying Field’ which I have given serious airplay to as I love the upbeat nature of it, and I thoroughly enjoyed their set. Their sound reminds me of a fellow upcoming band called Fortitude Valley.      

Manchester New Century Hall. Image Credit manchestereveningnews.co.uk

My next attendance was with Gill in June 2024 where we only shamefully discovered the Abel Heywood Hydes brewery pub for the first time, but we have rectified that by attending a couple of times since. The band that night was the Lovely Eggs who I didn’t enjoy as much as their previous times I have seen them.  

There then followed two attendances in Sept 2024. The first was remarkably for me to see Ride for the first time, however I had previously seen an individual set by Mark Gardener at Preston Continental back in November 2011 where they also showed a screening of ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’ which provides a story of the Oxford music scene featuring Ride alongside many other bands.    

For the uninitiated, Ride were prime shoegaze pioneers releasing two highly touted albums on Creation records in the early 1990’s. They broke up in 1996 before reforming in 2014 and were touring their latest album ‘Interplay’. The sound quality was poor early on but once they sorted that out, they were excellent.

My latest visit involved a large group of us including my pals Jason Gill and Barry Jury going to see the Go Team for the fourth time and for my first time for 14 years. They played in full their superb debut album ‘Thunder Lighting Strike’ with other tunes interspersed in their set.           

As a postscript I have managed to obtain some degree of numerical symmetry as New Century Hall was the actual 150th Manchester venue that I had visited.                                                                                                                                                         

Manchester Venues 87 to 88 Albert Hall – Part 3

Now I could be wrong here, but my impression is that the early shows immediately post- pandemic appeared to have less tickets on sale as for a spell there was more room to breathe, even at sold out shows. Then, the sold-out events seemed to become much busier and for me this is one of the flaws in Manchester Albert Hall’s arsenal as at some of their gigs there you literally cannot move. A case in point was a Mogwai date this year where I was pinned in a spot by the bar (though there are worse places to be!) which didn’t allow you to adjust your position or viewpoint even if you wanted to.   

My next gig at the venue was to see Car Seat Headrest in November 2018. I have always been a huge fan of this band ever since I first heard the track ‘Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales’, the song is derived from the 2016 ‘Teens of Denial’ album. That album ticks so many musical boxes from me and I would rate is as highly as being one of my Top 10 albums.  

Car Seat Headrest. Image Credit Billboard.

The driving force behind the band is Will Toledo who as a solo member self-released an astonishing 12 records between 2010 and 2014 before becoming a fully-fledged band the following year. In my view their music is so thoughtful and heartfelt but beautifully wrapped up in a crunchy garage rock sound which I have an inherent weakness for. The lo-fi lyrics talk specifically and empathise with the waifs and strays, lonely and dispossessed bedroom warriors of the world and the audience that night reflected that cross-section of the population, and I thoroughly enjoyed their show and the resulting exultant sing along!

As part of the Dot-to-Dot festival in 2018, I saw Dream Wife, a three-piece pop punk band from Brighton. I saw so many bands that day, and I cannot recall a note of whatever portion of their set I witnessed, but they do appear to have received a fair degree of critical acclaim since then.

July 19 resulted in seeing two reforming 90’s bands but neither hit the heights for me. The first being the Anglo-French combo Stereolab, who came across as a tad self-indulgent. The second was the Glaswegian lo-fi popsters Belle and Sebastian whose ongoing driving force has been Stuart Murdoch. They formed in 1996 and have produced twelve studio albums. Their previous members have included Isobel Campbell who collaborated on a couple of excellent albums with the late great Mark Lanegan.    

Their jaunty single ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’ was featured on the soundtrack of the ‘Juno’ movie and the C4 series ‘Teachers’ featuring a young Andrew Lincoln. In my opinion though, Andrew’s defining role remains the character Egg in the fantastic ground-breaking BBC 2 series ‘This Life’. Despite a couple of decent moments, the band were too twee for me.

In February 2020 I saw the Texan post-rock band Explosions in the Sky where it was patently clear when we were out and about that the dark clouds of Covid where beginning to form. In November 21 the old troubadours Jesus and Mary Chain were back on tour, and I was seeing them for the eighth time in total and for the first time in seven years. They played their excellent second album ‘Darklands’ in full and following an intermission played some further tunes. They sounded in very fine form and Jamie looked well though William looked a little weather worn and was seated throughout the performance.      

Jesus and Mary Chain. Image Credit exclaim!

In April 2022, I saw Sea Power (now without the British in their name) for the sixth time and later that year witnessed Mountain Goats. The latter band being from California and their constant member is John Darnielle, and for many years he operated as the solo member. Their name was derived from a line in a Screamin’ Jay Hawkins song, and they were firmly in the folk-rock vein and there were some die-hard fans in attendance.

My most current gig there was a couple of months ago to watch Eels who provided a soothing performance led by the distinctive vocals and quirky presence of Mark Oliver Everett (stage name E). They were supported on the night by the French soul rock band Inspector Cluzo.    

One postscript before I go, when leaving the hall during Dot-to-Dot festival in 2018 there was a Manchester Albert Hall Beer Van situated right outside the venue. There was an impromptu gig taking place in the open van by some accomplished musicians called the Road Crew, it was an enjoyable interlude before walking on to the next venue!