Tag: Manchester Gullivers

Manchester Venues 201 to 202

This week I will complete the tale of my night in Manchester on Friday 29th August 2025. In a couple of recent blogs, I outlined the five new venues I had sourced and attended, and the evening finished with a sixth by making my debut visit to the Manchester Skate Park (known locally as the pump cage).

In 2001, there was a blanket ban on skateboarding introduced into the public spaces of Manchester. In reaction to this announcement a then 23 year old chap called John Haines co-founded a new venture called Projekts MCR and worked with Manchester City Council to fundraise and take ownership of underused land under the Mancunian Way. They transformed it into a 1400 square metre thriving skate, scooter and BMX park which also doubles as a community hub and is utilised by over 20000 people annually, most under the age of 35 and a quarter being female skaters.

Manchester Skate Park. Image Credit rideukbmx.com

They initially concentrated on the core logistics by obtaining funding for ramps, floodlights, heating and the obligatory café. They persevered for three years to obtain a long term lease and commendably gathered a further £2m in funding from various sources to expand and improve the site. It is now the largest community led skatepark in the UK with a core staff of 26 people.  

In those two intervening decades skateboarding has burgeoned as a sport to the extent of it debuting as an Olympic event at the 2020 Beijing games. The park is in the south of the city and lies five minutes’ walk from Piccadilly train station and it is in my eyes a perfect urban location for such a venture where you can go and embrace your inner Avril Lavigne!   

Around 2022 I initially became aware that they were also starting to stage gigs at the park, the roster concentrating in the main on guitar bands in synch with the backdrop. In March 2023 I endeavoured to make a visit as part of a double gig venture as I was also in attendance at an event at Gullivers that night, but in the end, I couldn’t make it work.  The site was a niche hidden venue until they raised their profile via inclusion on the roster of the Manchester Psych Festival.

 

Avril Lavigne in Sk8er Boi phase. Image Credit tapeciarnia.pl

So, on the night of my visit Marcus and I mulched down to the venue and encountered a very slow moving queue to enter the site. We grabbed an aperitif and encountered our first challenge as to where to position ourselves. An obvious constraint of a skate park is that it contains many peaks, hills and hollows which serve to restrict your viewing capability.  

For the support act we were literally perched on the side of a slope and throughout the evening we were wary as to where we stepped as there were many ‘ankle wrenching’ risk points, especially more so after a couple of scoops!

The first band on stage were Keo for which the main nucleus is the Keogh brothers (Finn and Conor), hence the name, who have music in their bloodstream as the majority of their childhood was spent touring around UK, Ireland and USA with their dad’s one-man music and comedy show. They were in a school band called the Deverills and honed their craft with tireless busking. On the night they provided a decent slab of grunge noise.

In the gap between the acts, we managed to upgrade our position to a raised platform with infinitely better views. The headline band were Gurriers, an act who took their name from the Irish term for a lout or a street urchin. They initially met and formed in Dublin in 2020, but their initial inertia was stalled by the pandemic. However, they continued to remain productive and prepped their material via numerous zoom calls and were thus ready to play their debut gig on Halloween 2021 at Dublin’s Workman’s club. They followed that by releasing their first album ‘Come and See’ in 2024.

Gurriers. Image Credit gurriers.net

I would concede they were not the most original band I have ever seen live, but the counterpoint is that they created some cathartic noise and most certainly had an energetic stage presence illustrated by one of the guitarists at one point perching off the gantry.   

One of the access routes in and out of Piccadilly station is via the busy footbridge which arches over London Road. As you head downwards towards Aytoun and Canal Street you can view to your left Manchester Piccadilly Park Square which is an open area ringed by retail units including the requisite phone repair shop.

When heading that way one evening to catch a train home I noticed they had set up a temporary stage in the square and there was a local artist called Sammy performing in front of a small audience.  

Manchester Venues 142 to 144

Within the Northern Quarter as you progress away from the vibrant and busy Oldham Street down Hilton Street towards Stevenson Square you reach Manchester Corner Boy. The establishment for many years was the iconic Koffee Pot café before morphing into an American diner called West Corner in 2016, a place I visited once for a slightly non nutritious snack! A couple of years later it changed again into its current incarnation as an Irish bar and deli.

Corner Boy. Image Credit ilovemanchester.com

It is owned by nearby Hatters Hostel and is a homely venue with low lighting and mahogany décor, they have a small outside seating area and also serve traditional tucker such as Irish stew, colcannon, and soda bread and naturally a decent pint of the black stuff. There is a function room downstairs that can be hired out.

They undertake DJ sets on a weekend and occasionally also have live music and so it came to pass that after an excellent Black Doldrums gig at nearby Gullivers I landed in there to catch a portion of a soulful set by the Manchester based Olivia Joseph band.   

Beyond the pub you arrive instantly at Stevenson Square where during the pandemic they made the pro-active decision to pedestrianise the area to allow the suite of pubs in the vicinity to be able to have outside tables in a continental style. Thankfully as the world returned to normal, they maintained this sensible approach and as a result it can be a very lively area on a sunny afternoon with people sat out nursing cold beers and cocktails.

On the far angle of the square on the Piccadilly station side you would find Manchester Shack Bar and Grill, not to be mistaken with Dino’s Bar and Grill featured in the Thin Lizzy track ‘The Boys are Back in Town! It appeared to be modelled to a degree on an American diner with their award winning burgers and has seating outside on an astro-turf surface.

Manchester Shack Bar and Grill. Image Credit ilovemanchester.com

It had a large spacious bar area and there was a chilled vibe about the place. After a noisy Cheatahs gig at Soup Kitchen we dived in there for a flyer before sallying off for the last train home. Whilst in residence they had some acoustic acts on, and we saw two local singers called Josh Morrison and Ex Moxley.

In 2019 the original Hilton Street site closed but it quickly relocated over to High Street on the other side of the Northern Quarter and took over from where the Blue Pig used to be. Blue Pig was one of around dozen bars in NQ, Printworks, Heaton Moor and West Didsbury that was owned by the hospitality group Mark Andrew Developments (MAD Ltd) which unexpectedly went into liquidation at the tail end of 2018.  The Shack however is still standing strong to this day at its revised address.   

The concept and evolution of Manchester Feel Good Club commenced back in 2016. The owners and married couple Keira and Aimie Lawlor-Skillen were struggling with eating disorders and mental health issues and wanted to instil more positivity into their life so instigated the Feel Good name which started initially on Instagram, and which has now grown exponentially up to 335k followers. It evolved from there via a candle making business and then in 2020 by opening up a physical space which is located on Hilton Street.

Manchester Feel Good Club. Image Credit northernquartermanchester.com

The club is primarily a coffee shop and bar and generally closes at 6pm. However, on certain days it has after hour events including Mischief Cabaret and Queer open mic nights. They also have a clothing range and have billboards dotted about the city outlining their ongoing ethos.

In June this year Gill and I happened to be striding past on our way to another gig and were distracted by a vibrant atmosphere in the club. On stage was a trans artist called Miss Chief Cabaret whose character was created by Rupaul’s Drag Race alumni Banksie who featured in Series 5 of the television show.

This is the stage name for Jonathan Banks, who was born in Wigan and is now the artistic director of the venue Firehouse on Swan Street. He is 6 foot 8 inches tall but rises up to 7ft in heels and on the night, he was camping it up on stage and going down a storm with a highly animated audience who were living up to the name on the door!