Tag: Manchester Band on the Wall

Manchester Venues 161 to 162

The Sounds from the Other City festival I attended in 2024 sensibly decided to reincorporate the venues contained within Salford University grounds, and I believe they are also to be retained on the roster for the 20th anniversary edition taking place in 2025.

Manchester Peel Building is the University’s oldest structure that remains in live usage. It was originally designed by architect Henry Lord and was the site for the Salford Royal Technical Institute when first opened by the future George V and Queen Mary in 1896. The distinctive red Accrington brick Grade II listed building changed to its current moniker in 1967 and is currently home to the University’s School of Environment and Life Sciences.     

Salford Peel Building. Image Credit confidentials.com

On the lawn outside there is an elaborate brick gazebo also designed by Mr Lord, however it is visually misleading as it is in fact a disguised ventilation duct for the laboratories in the old Technical college.

Within the edifice itself, there are various lecture halls and in one of those seated auditoriums there were bands performing on the stage which was curated on the day by the Band on the Wall venue and Manchester based Reform Radio. The first act we saw was ISHA who is a producer and artist who gravitates between living in London and Amsterdam. She was a multi-instrumentalist one woman act who primarily concentrates on bass playing and released her debut EP ‘Bending Colours’ in 2023.

Later, we witnessed Muva of Earth who is a London based Nigerian singer who has morphed now into Divine Earth and is a solo act but is also one half of Divine Angel, hopefully you are still with me! She was also named by the Face Mag as ‘London’s new Alt-Jazz superstar’. Though I must report she certainly didn’t cause me to transcend when I watched her!    

Next door resides the Manchester Salford Museum and Art Gallery where I had visited once before in its daytime guise for coffee and cake prior to Gill’s graduation.  Back in 1849, Salford City Council allowed Lark Hill Mansion to be designated as an educational site and converted it into a public museum and library. A year after opening it had expanded to have the capability to house 12,000 volumes, a further year later the art gallery was added to the complex.  

Salford Museum and Art Gallery. Image Credit hotels.com

This site then turned into its current modus operandi and is located in Peel Park, so named after Robert Peel and commemorating his contribution to the subscription fund which the council used to originally purchase the Mansion. The gallery and museum are faithful to the history of Salford and Victorian art and architecture. The location for many decades held over 400 artefacts by local painter L.S Lowry, before they were transferred in 2002 to a purpose-built gallery within the Lowry in Salford Quays, next to where much of the BBC and 6 music radio is now located.    

When we attended in the afternoon it was close to capacity, so I grabbed a perch on a windowsill that then transpired to be a sweltering sunspot. On stage was an engaging singer songwriter called C Duncan who was being very well received by the audience. Christopher Duncan is a Glasgow boy and is signed to the renowned Bella Union label, he has recorded output going back to 2014 and his debut album ‘Architect’ was nominated for the 2015 Mercury Music Prize.

C Duncan. Image Credit bbc.co.uk

A single from his third album ‘Health’ was produced by Elbow’s Craig Potter at Salford’s very own Blueprint Studios. He has had support slots with Belle and Sebastian and his tunes have appeared on various TV programmes including Waterloo Road. The muse was obviously always in his bloodline as both his parents were classical musicians and though they are now retired they have ‘reformed the band’ to provide string sounds on his most recent recordings. He had a dreamy folky style and was a fine accompaniment to my window basking!  

Much later we headed back to the library to endeavour to catch the last artist on the day’s roster. It was still busy, so after queueing for a little spell, we finally gained access to catch the last song on Laura J Martin’s set.  She is a Liverpool lass and on her first album in 2016 she recruited members of Lambchop, Silver Jews and Jesus Lizard to assist her. Prior to her recently released fourth album ‘Prepared’ she undertook an apprenticeship with renowned local flute player and maker Willy Simmons.    

Manchester Venues 136 to 137

As you traverse down Oldham Street in the Northern Quarter from Piccadilly Gardens you pass the iconic Night and Day and Piccadilly Records and just after the junction with Hilton Street you reach Manchester Freemount. It commenced its tenure as a traditional Tetley Brewery public house before morphing into the Northern and then into its current moniker. There are two entrances with one on Tib Street alongside the Oldham Street access.

Manchester Freemount. Image Credit tripadvisor.com

It is an old-fashioned homely establishment with impressive glazed emerald green filed frontage with exterior seating for those rare sunny evenings. It has regular live music and often to quite a late hour as they remain open until 2am every night. Those timelines are handy for catching some cheeky bonus gigs before pottering off for the late train. I first encountered some live tuneage there in October 2018 prior to an Orielles gig at the aforementioned Night and Day when I saw a local artist called Adie playing. My second most recent attendance was earlier this year with my pal Riggers after a gig at the Band on the Wall venue and we witnessed an artist called Monty.

The pub is owned by the Urban Village Bars company who also have Another Heart to Feed bar/restaurant on their roster. They now have a recently added third string to their bow with the Wayfarer pub on Swan Street which has the same frontage as the Freemount. They also apparently have live bands there so I shall have to put it on my list of places to visit.

If you then head up Newton Street towards Piccadilly Station, you arrive at Manchester Hold Fast. located down some steps in the basement of Hatters Hostel. The hostel is named to commemorate the Joseph Wood & Sons Hat Factory that resided in the Victorian building where it is located. The factory was built in 1907 and the three-storey glazed ‘arcades’ were designed with the concept of adding additional light into the building.

Manchester Hold Fast. Image Credit themanc.com

The hostel retains some of the original features of the porcelain sinks and a spooky old lift (probably like the one featured in the ‘The Long Good Friday’ movie). They have received some high level customer service scores, possibly because of the fact they have a games room including a pool table and free tea and toast all day, I mean what is not to like about that!   

The bar also has its own small cinema space, designed for lazy ‘hangover Sundays’, where you can watch old black and white movies whilst nursing your self-imposed headache. There is also a further vintage games room with old Sego video games which included Sonic the Hedgehog and early versions of Football Manager.

Being of a certain age myself I recall the astonishingly basic Pong games in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s where the Tennis and Football used to blip and blop across the screen and were virtually identical! I also remember playing the early Grand Prix driving machines, there used to be one in the New Britannia pub on Heatley Street in Preston, and also Track and Field. My all time personal favourite though was Galaxians, which you would sometimes see as a tabletop version.

Hi-tech Pong video game. Image Credit Timetoast.

Hold Fast is an intriguing nautical themed bar, apparently inspired by Jules Verne’s novels, specifically ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea’, and is a dimly lit space with numerous ships lanterns and candles dotted about. They have a suite of craft beers available to imbibe. They also have open mic nights and live music events and one such evening in 2018 Gill and I saw a local chap called Edwin play there. The venue closed in 2019 and was touted to reopen in November 2023, but it is unclear on their website whether that actually happened.