Tag: Manchester Dot to Dot Festival

Manchester Venues 176 to 177

LEAF began in 2007 as a small tea shop run by friends located within a Liverpool city centre gallery before swiftly moving up to a larger setting in Parliament Street where they hosted pudding clubs and album launches. They upgraded again in 2010 when they moved to their current home on Bold Street and they stock over sixty varieties of rare teas and have won various awards.

They decided to expand into another city and in 2016 opened up Manchester LEAF on Portland Street in the Grade II listed site where the CUBE gallery used to reside. They described themselves as having a ‘semi-Scandanavian feel’ and there were three separate private spaces available for business or private dining events, with room for either thirty, seventy or three hundred guests. They served food all day and had a licence until 2am at the weekends. I have just read though that the  Manchester branch closed its doors permanently in 2022.

Manchester LEAF. Image Credit premierconstructionnews.com

I visited there just twice (but on the same day) as the venue was on the roster for the 2018 Dot to Dot festival and the place had a welcoming bohemian feel to it. Our first arrival was around 5.30 in the afternoon where we grabbed a cold one and on a pop up stage we saw a singer/songwriter called Tom Lumley playing.  He derived originally from a small village in Cambridgeshire, and it was a solo performance. Since then, he has formed a band called Tom Lumley &The Brave Liaison who released their debut album ‘Everything’s Affected in 2021.    

Much later on that day, we returned and caught the last song from a four piece called MCRAE who initially formed in 2013. They however broke up a decade later by rather appropriately playing their last ever gig on 27/05/23 at the site of their first ever show on Barnoldswick Town Square.

There then occurred a ‘sliding doors’ moment as at that stage Uncle George, John Dewhurst and I were just looking for one last drink before sending the lads home on the last train back to Preston. The bar had just shut in Leaf, so after a quick discussion we then headed down randomly to the Temple Bar.

MCRAE. Image Credit louderthanwar.com

When we sat down I was approached by a chap who asked if he could sit by us and I noticed his Dot to Dot wristband and we got to chatting about music, Mogwai and his Coventry background. This chap turned out to be Marcus who at various later dates was my conduit to meeting his girlfriend Anita, his old pal Tris and her fella Ross.

Gill and I are now firm friends with them all and I then think back that if Leaf had still been serving beers we would in all likelihood have never met, a situation that would sadden me greatly. Marcus and I have now attended around eighty gigs together, but we still joke about the fact that we initially met in a bar that used to be a public toilet!   

In 2016, the owners of NoHo and Dusk til Pawn decided to open a European style subterranean beer hall in the Northern Quarter. Their venue of choice was to base Manchester Cooper Hall in the old location of Copacabana salsa club in Sevendale House off Dale Street. Within there they incorporated street food traders, DJ’s and a plethora of European beers including freshly brewed Czech Republic Tank Pilsener Urquell within the 300 capacity space.  

Manchester Cooper Hall. Image Credit confidentials.com

The name was selected to pay homage to the history of the building, which was originally completed in 1903 and utilised as a trade warehouse for I.J & G Cooper. There was an extensive £6m refurbishment in 2014 of the 120,000 square feet Grade II listed site, and other tenants include Foundation Coffee and Ticketmaster.

The hall had a vintage feel with reclaimed wood benches and tables and original features including glazed brick walls and large skylight windows and I took an instant liking to the place though I have just read that the bar sadly permanently closed in 2022. 

It was also selected as a venue on 2018 Dot to Dot monorail and on our particular visit we saw a local combo called Champions of Youth, a five-piece indie act who rose from the ashes of previous band Amida. Amida were highly touted when they formed in 2005 and garnered support slots with the likes of Tender Trap, Camera Obscura and Subway Sect prior to their split in 2012. The group we saw had a vibe of late 1980’s and 1990’s and I could understand the cited reference points of Pavement and the Wolfhounds.    

Manchester Venue 175 – Night People

Manchester Night People was located on Princess Street about equidistant between China Town and Canal Street, just around the corner from the Satan’s Hollow venue. I can find very scant history online for this establishment, but I think it opened in around 2017, and I believe it closed post-covid for a 6 month refurbishment, but it looks like it never subsequently reopened.

I visited there four times in total, and I know they were included on the Psych Fest roster, an event I have never yet attended but also for the now defunct Dot-to-Dot festival which I was present at for several years.

I recall they used to stage Northern Soul shindigs for the Twisted Wheel events and due to the age now of many of the participants they staged it on a Sunday afternoon. I am sure the intimate downstairs setting would have made it an ideal location for such a gathering, and I recently located a flyer of the legendary Geno Washington and the Ram Jam band playing there in 2018. I would estimate the capacity of the venue would have been somewhere around 200.

 

Night People flyer. Image Credit mdmarchive.co.uk

My first visit was in February 2018 in the company of one of my Northeast correspondents Jamie Young. We were already attending a gig at Night and Day that evening so grabbed the opportunity to undertake an earlier foray to the new venue on the block! We met initially in the iconic Marble Arch public house before sampling some tea at the Mackie Mayors food hall and then headed down to Night People.

The first act was the Mancunian band slowhandclap who appear to play a lot of gigs at the Northern Quarter venues, and they provided a slab on noisy post punk. Also on the bill were Chester two-piece DEH-YEY who like many duos produced a fair old racket of fuzzy dark sounds with the driving force being the guitarist/vocalist Cash Burns. They have released a slew of singles thus far and have garnered a support slot for the much touted Belfast band Enola Gay.  

Three months later as part of Dot to Dot we saw an American singer songwriter called Kyle Craft. He was born in an isolated Mississippi river town in Louisiana and his first introduction to guitar music was a random purchase of a David Bowie compilation at his local Kmart store.

I think we can all attest to our own individual epiphany to hearing music that will go on to change and influence our life. My personal individual ‘journey’ (a much over used reality show phrase nowadays) was via my dad’s Neil Young and my brother’s Husker Du records and also hearing Stiff Little Fingers for the first time as a young pup at an early school disco.

An early 2018 sighting of Fontaines DC at the venue. Image Credit whenthehornblows.com

Kyle subsequently moved to Texas, and he formed a band called Gashcat who then broke up a couple of years later with the slightly bizarre reasoning of ongoing adverse comparison to Neutral Milk Hotel! In 2016, he recorded his debut album ‘Dolls of Highland’ on Sub Pop Records and then gathered together a live band callee Showboat Honey and secured a support slot with Drive-By Truckers.  

On the afternoon I saw him they produced an excellent set of deep fried Southern rock , where I could hear shades of Green on Red, Lone Justice and The Band, his strong vocal complemented by a fine backing band was a good combination. My next trip was again linked to Dot-to-Dot and the band on show this time was a local combo called ELM.

My final visit was on 26th February 2020 when the spectre of Covid was just beginning to gather pace. I attended with my pal Paul Wilson who had other Preston folk in tow including Aidy and Janet from Lostock Hall. I recall we met in one of the Wetherspoons before having a bevy at the timeless Lass O Gowry. Throughout the gig between bands there was a DJ set from writer and broadcaster Dave Haslam who is primarily famous for being DJ for over 450 sets at the Hacienda nightclub incorporating a Thursday night residency at the Temperance club night from 1986 to 1990.  

The first act on stage was Mick O Toole and the main support were the Gallowgate Murders, a five-piece Celtic punk band from Edinburgh who had only formed the year before. The headliners were the Rumjacks, a rumbustious combo from Sydney in Australia who were also in the Celtic punk mould. They were formed in 2008 and they were renowned for their energetic live shows and lived up to their billing. Their most famous song ‘An Irish Pub Song’ went viral and has garnered over 85m hits on YouTube.

The Rumjacks. Image Credit iheart.com

I recall a generous chap we had never met buying us a round at the bar before Paul and I entered the thrashing, flailing white hot intensity of the mosh pit. It had been a fair while since I had been in such a vibrant pit and my first since turning 50, and I had to recalibrate instantly to peel off my outer layer of clothing and take my watch off for safe keeping and then dived back in.

It was a very small area not helped by some inopportune bruise inducing shelves around the perimeter, but we were in there for the last hour of the gig, and it was a bloody good sweaty fun, more so in hindsight when the first lockdown kicked in a couple of weeks later!