Manchester Venues 151 to 152

I am blessed with my current geographical Manchester location as there are regular multi-venue events, the latest to spring up is the Years End Festival which took place at the tail end of 2024 and is based in the main down the Oxford Road corridor. The remit of the days roster was for it to contain up and coming bands and most were guitar based, which suited me down to a tee.

The downside on the day was the monsoon and high winds weather conditions which was a tad bracing! I have previously detailed the Retro Bar downstairs area in an earlier blog, but this festival allowed me to attend a gig in the Manchester Retro Bar Area for the first time. I enrolled my pal Paul to be my wing man, and we met up at that site after we had both separately obtained our entry wristbands from the pickup point.

As I trotted down towards the building it soon became evident that there was a noisy combo already ensconced on the stage. I grabbed a cold beverage and settled in to watch a band called Revivalry who are a thumping three piece from Grimsby. They had such admirable confidence which is remarkable when viewed against the fact that none of the members are above 17 years of age. The lead singer and bassist Josh Courfield who was belting out the tunes looked about 12!

Revivalry. Image Credit grimsbytelegraph.co.uk

They are understandably reliant at this stage in being ferried to gigs around the country in the back of a transit van by one of their understanding tolerant parents and they were chosen to be the youngest band ever to play the Main Stage at the 2024 version of the Kendal Calling festival. They are on Manchester label Cosmic Glue and have already garnered support slots with Reverend and the Makers and The Lathums.  

In a novel twist they climbed down into the crowd to play an acoustic portion of their penultimate track before clambering back onto the stage for the electric second half of the song with full audience singalong participation. They were overall rather fine fun and good luck to them in their potentially burgeoning careers.    

Now, I have always endeavoured to never replicate myself in these articles but I make no apologies now for referencing a tale I mentioned briefly back in the mists of time in the second paragraph of Blog 1.

Hacienda nightclub. Image Credit manchestereveningnews.co.uk

My first ever venue visited in Manchester should have been at the Hacienda nightclub as we had tickets to see Husker Du there in early 1985. There was though a fundamental stumbling block of having no means of transport to be able to get there and back as my brother was between cars, I was too young to drive, and the last train departed at 10.30pm.

Thus, I never got to visit the Hacienda though thankfully did manage to see Husker Du twice in the next couple of years after the unfortunate ‘gig that never was’. To be perfectly honest though I am not overly gutted on that score as despite the club admittedly having a brief golden period, reports from my peers who attended there to see Trouble Funk and Killing Joke amongst others thought it was always sparsely populated and a little bit of a dump!    

One of the co-owners of the Hacienda was Peter Hook, who in 2010 collaborated with the Hacienda’s original interior designer Ben Kelly to renovate and reopen the former Factory Records HQ on Charles Street and Princess Street, opposite the Joshua Brooks public house. It opened as a nightclub and also stages student nights and live music and retained its original name as Manchester FAC251.

Toy Car. Image Credit facebook.com

On entry, my first impression that it was smaller than I had envisaged it would be. The bands that day were playing on the ground floor space with a 400-capacity called Manchester FAC251 Basement. There are apparently two other rooms, the first floor Loft and second floor Boardroom, both with a 200 capacity.  

The room had a metallic nightclub vibe about it, which is always a slightly odd scenario when watching acts at the earlier daylight hour’s time of 5pm. The band on stage was a scouse jingle jangle collective called Toy Car who are a fledgling act who have only thus far released a handful of singles, and they provided an engaging and energetic set.

Bolton Venue 1 – Bar Four in the Vaults

Bolton is a former textile mill town in Greater Manchester and in its industrial peak in the 1920’s there were over 200 cotton mills in the area employing 36,000 workers people making it one of the most concentrated cotton spinning centres in the world. The northern side of town faces Rivington Pike and the locally famous Winter Hill TV mast on the West Pennine Moors. Famous ex-punters include comedian Peter Kay, steeplejack Fred Dibnah and boxer Amir Khan.  They also have a baseball team based there with the memorable moniker of Robots of Doom.

Bolton Robots of Doom emblem. Image Credit news.ltn.com.tw

My first forays into Bolton were on football trips and in fact the first ever away game I attended on my own following Preston was at their old ground of Burnden Park with the terraces adjacent to Normid superstore! A group of us went over on the train, we drew 2-2 and the game took place on 17th December 1983.

The significance of that date is contained in the tale that when I was walking back to the station and put my transistor radio on (pre-internet!) to check the football scores I was instantly approached by two policeman. The reason for their interest was for any details of the news headlines, but I had only picked up on the sports results so could not provide any information. It transpired the only news headline that day was of the IRA Harrods bombing in London.       

Many football trips followed including a couple at their new stadium at Horwich retail park when they relocated there in 1997. A particular nadir was in May 1993 when Bolton beat us 1-0 to gain promotion and that result also relegated us, a particularly fun afternoon that one!  

The old away end at Burnden Park, at least you could do some shopping after! Image Credit Fine Art America.

I recall in the mid 1990’s I had a prang in my motor which necessitated obtaining a new bonnet. The sourcing of that particular car part took me to an anonymous retail park under railway sidings in Bolton. The suspicious looking geezers and location was akin to completing a deal outside a lock-up in the Sweeney!

Aside from the above occurrences it is a place I have rarely frequented despite it being a 30-minute train ride from Preston as we would normally just pass through on the way to Manchester, I only have recollection of one pub trip over that way.

On a musical front, there have never been any venues of note there apart from a brief period in 2009 when a venue called the Soundhouse opened with a 650 capacity. I picked up that Glasvegas were playing there but dawdled on tickets and it subsequently sold out on me. Shortly after that gig the venue abruptly closed for good.  

However, the musical gods decided to give Bolton a second chance with the inception of the Right to Roam festival, a metropolitan multi venue music and arts event around the town centre. Jez Catlow flagged it to me as an event of interest after he attended the 2022 version. The tickets were only £10 and there were over 100 bands performing over two days, though not altogether sure how the organisers break even.

Marcus, Anita and I decided to head over to catch up with Jez’s crew on the Saturday of the July 23 shindig. The trip started surreally as at my local train station there was a pillock who instead of taking the standard route via the main road between platforms decided to hop across the actual track. I don’t whether there is a third ‘live’ rail on my route, but if so, he avoided it!

The ticket pick up point was in the basement of the Grade II listed Market Hall which opened in 1855 and encompasses an area of 7000 square yards and at the time it was cited as ‘the largest covered market in the kingdom’.

Bolton Market Hall. Image Credit flickr.com

Next door was Bolton Bar Four in the Vaults which opened its doors in 2022 and championed music and young upcoming acts in an intimate setting. First up there was the former Hacienda glass collector and Inspiral Carpets frontman Tom Hingley with an acoustic set. Later, we saw Double Cross who were an acoustic harmonica and guitar duo.  

I have just read that the bar is closing as they are a making a loss and the business will be moving into the new market food hall where they hope to maintain the music slant with open mic nights at weekends. The owners will continue to run their other music sites, the Ramp and the Loft, both in nearby Horwich.