Tag: Manchester Club Academy

2023 Gigs – Part 1

Continuing the theme of previous years, I will now cover the 2023 gigs attended at venues already reviewed in previous blogs. Because I am sure you are desperate to know lets firstly cover the numbers bit! It turned out to be a record breaking year in that I attended 128 gigs in total which also encompassed 70 new venues.

So, I shall start with the familiar haunt of Manchester Academy 2 and cover my 41st and 42nd visits to that venue. In the cold depths of mid-winter in January Marcus and I headed there to witness the Delgados who are a four-piece band from Glasgow who produce some imaginative music. They formed in 1994 before disbanding in 2005 and then subsequently reformed in 2022 hence this comeback tour.

The Delgados. Image Credit nme.com

I had seen them once before on our honeymoon at Dublin Mean Fiddler in 1998 where they were on an excellent double bill with Nottingham’s Six By Seven. I thoroughly enjoyed their current incarnation as they cut an engaging presence on stage in front of a responsive crowd just glad to witness them back on the gig circuit and their tour culminated with a date in their home city.

The other attendance to Academy 2 also involved a further lengthy gap from my first sighting, in this case 20 years and one week exactly from when I witnessed the Northern Irish combo Therapy? at Preston Mill. Now to be fair I have always been fairly ambivalent about this band and their show on the night unfortunately didn’t alter my viewpoint.  

Prior to the gig there was an obligatory visit to the nearby mecca Manchester Big Hands where they periodically have live bands playing at the end of the room. That night I encountered a noisy Warrington psych rock band called Pray for Mojo who earlier in the year had graced the stage at Manchester Psych Fest. In 2022, they had released their debut album titled ‘Welcome to Mojopia’. They were supported by Swamp Kids.  

I shall now return to the Academy complex with a visit to Manchester Club Academy with the more than welcome return of the Raveonettes. The Copenhagen duo of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo were back on the circuit after a 4 year sabbatical. They were in fine form and played a greatest hits set with my personal highlight being one of their early singles ‘That Great Love Sound’. They were supported by local noiseniks Dr Dr.   

The Raveonettes. Image Credit discogs

Prior to night one of my Mogwai triple bill (over four nights and two cities) Gill and I grabbed a table and had an aperitif in the Manchester Blues Kitchen Bar. The act on stage whilst we primed ourselves for the upcoming aural assault were called Cry Wolf.   

The next gig derived from my very learned musical twitter (I still call it twitter!) pal @parramaterial who recommended Black Doldrums on their latest tour that included a date at Manchester Gullivers. Thus, the troops were enlisted and four of us popped over to have a gander and they were wholly worthy of the effort. Black Doldrums are a North London trio who released their debut album ‘Dead Awake’ in 2022 and they created a hugely enjoyable psych shoegaze cacophony on the night.

Black Doldrums. Image Credit louderthanwar.com

In June I had a foray over to Manchester Didsbury Park Green for the summer festival where a lass called Sally Smith was playing.  The following week another twitter recommendation resulting in four of us attending Manchester Yes Pink Room to watch Screaming Females. Their driving force was Marissa Paternoster who initially formed the band in 2005 at a high school in New Jersey.

Obscure fact time, she was referenced as the 77th greatest guitarist of all time in the Spin magazine in 2012. They released eight albums in total, all on the terrifically named Don Giovanni record label. I happened to catch them and their very decent stagecraft on their final ever tour as they subsequently broke up later in the year. 

The next two gigs to cover took place at Manchester Ritz where Tony Dewhurst, Rick Clegg, Barry Jury and I (Gang of Four) went to watch the Gang of Four who entertained with their angular post-punk sound. In October we managed to purchase tickets to see the Pretenders and the eternally youthful Chrissie Hynde. Unusually, on arrival the queue snaked back to beyond the Sainsburys on the corner, but we managed to enter the establishment just in time for their excellent show and her voice still sounds terrific. She dedicated one song to Johnny Marr, who was in the audience watching on his birthday.  

2021 Gigs – Part 2

I am continuing to look at the post-apocalypse year of 2021 where I somehow managed to attend 33 gigs. There is a suite of new venues in this year which will be featured in future blogs, however I am going to focus on the venues already visited and covered in previous articles.

On the 21st of August, I managed to finally return over to Preston and have my first night out there for 18 months. After watching PNE in the afternoon, Uncle George and I met up with John Dewhurst and we had a sally down the pubs on Friargate. This included a visit to the ever-unchanged Preston Olde Black Bull, where there was a thunderously loud band called Law and Order playing in the main room. It was low quality fare, and its only relevant significance was the fact that it was my 200th gig in Preston.

We also headed up to Preston Market where they have now put in place a deserved tribute bench to commemorate Preston’s very own Nick Park, the abundantly imaginative creator of Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, now I have mentioned it please try and stop yourself humming the theme tune to Wallace & Gromit. He also coincidentally attended the same secondary school as myself though he was a few years above me.

Nick Park bench with the chap himself. Image Credit wallaceandgromit.com

As we walked up Orchard Street, we could hear the unmistakeable rumble of a live band, and therefore bonus gig said I! As it was a balmy August evening, they had erected a stage at the Lancaster Road end of the covered outdoor market just beyond the Orchard Bar. After purchasing a cold craft beer, we witnessed a young local band called the Avenhams, named after one of the main parks in the city. They had an enthusiastic friends and family crowd supporting them and despite veering into lad rock at times they were enjoyable.

On the 7th September I attended my first indoor pay gig at Manchester Academy 2, the venue now clearly rattling into second place on my most visited venue list. Prior to the event and as it was a pleasant Tuesday evening, we purloined some outdoor seats at a pub that remarkably I had never visited before, which was the Ducie Arms buried behind the Manchester University campus.  

The gig was a sell-out, but I surmise that post-pandemic sold out capacities are less than previous restrictions as it clearly felt there was room to breathe in the venue, and that appears to be a sensible continuing ongoing action in my experience of the gigs I have attended since. They operated one-way systems and there was a very civilised queue at the bar, and everyone was understandably noticeably considerate of others and their own personal space. 

The band on stage was the timeless Teenage Fanclub who were in peerless form and Norman Blake had a manic grin throughout, no doubt as relieved as all of us to be back on the tour schedule. Many travelled from far and wide including Stephanie (@peripixie on twitter) who travelled in from America prior to her watching them at their spiritual home Glasgow Barrowland the following week.

Teenage Fanclub. Image Credit Tiny Mix Tapes

Post gig we went for a cold one at Big Hands further down Oxford Road. Whilst Marcus and Gill were ensconced in the roof top beer garden upstairs, I was at the bar waiting for a lengthy beer barrel change when one lad at the bar inadvertently came out to his mate, which was a slightly surreal occurrence to witness.

A month later I headed into town on the No 50 bus to Manchester Club Academy to see the scouse band Red Rum Club. It was a gentle foray as I was departing the next day for a family gathering at a large house we had rented in Matlock. I had seen them three years earlier at Peer Hat and I thought they were excellent there as the sound was so crisp. They didn’t quite scale those heights this time, and I do think seeing a band for a second time is a tester of their ability and potential longevity, much like the second viewing of a movie.