Tag: Manchester International 1

Manchester Venues 219 to 220

In 2017 a new variation of the ‘Mackie Mayor’ food hubs, or perhaps more so a mirror of the BoxPark in Shoreditch, was opened by Bruntwood Property Group on Oxford Road which was named Manchester Hatch. It is situated just beyond the old BBC buildings and lies underneath the Mancunian Way motorway bridges.

My first memory of those bridges was in 1985 as part of a very early morning trog back into the city centre from the Manchester International venue after a fabulous seminal Husker Du gig. The reasons behind that particular march were there that there no late trains in those days and the walk was followed by a restless kip in Manchester Victoria station waiting rooms before subsequently catching the 6am train home.  

Hatch complex. Image Credit manchestersfinest.com

Hatch lived up to its name as it was comprised of a suite of around thirty colourful repurposed shopping containers which housed various local and independent food and drink traders including Kongs, Parmogeddon, House of Habisha and OL Brewery. There were three separate bars and in the middle of the central space there was a large food courtyard where I once grabbed some tea prior to a gig at Castlefield Bowl.

The name also implied that it was specifically for small pop up businesses to then be able to grow into more bespoke bricks and mortar sites. It was open seven days a week from 12 noon, and the contracts stipulated that each trader was required to be operational when the overall venue was open and their retention was desirable to endeavour to create favourites for footfall to return regularly. Due to their close proximity to the universities, they were a key component of Freshers Week.  

At one stage the overall business was achieving a £3.5m turnover, however in the summer of 2023 it all came to an abrupt and inglorious end. The traders were initially given a very short notice closure period, which was subsequently extended after an understandable backlash to October 2023 and this then transpired to be its final closure date.   

It was then scheduled to be taken over by STACK who already have existing sites in Leeds, Middlesbrough and Newcastle, the latter directly outside St James football stadium.  Initial plans were for it to open by the end of 2024 after a full refurbishment with the original Hatch traders being given first refusal within the revamped site, but to this day the area remains closed.

Venue nightclub. Image Credit Manchester Evening News.

They also incorporated a small stage where live performers would play on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday whilst you were dining or imbibing and I saw two such acts there on different occasions, they were namely Reggae Collective and The Events. At other times a DJ was employed from a local record shop to provide the tuneage which apparently included ‘non-offensive hip hop’ which instantly reminds me of the Parental Advisory label initiative instigated by Tipper Gore in 1985.

I will then move across the city to take you to the Manchester Venue nightclub located at 29 Jacksons Row just above Deansgate. It is a student based establishment that first opened its doors in December 2006 and has no dress code apart from an aversion to football tops and has a 400 capacity.  

It is open from Wednesday to Saturdays with a theme event each night, namely Jam Wednesdays (including live gigs), DISORDER Thursday, Live Forever on Friday and Independence Saturday. To be honest, I was barely aware of its existence until it became a surprising addition to the 2019 Dot to Dot festival roster, so naturally I had to make a visit alongside the other twenty one gigs attended that day, it was a proper shoe leather erosion event!  

We arrived there about 5.30pm on a sunny day and headed down the stairs into the sparsely populated dimly lit basement with the obligatory sticky carpeting. I recall a large poster on the wall with a musical version of the Usual Suspects picture including David Bowie and Iggy Pop amongst others.

Stanleys kitted out. Image Credit facebook.

The band on stage was The Stanleys, a four piece from Wigan and they are supporters of their local footy team, so much so they appeared in the recent 26/27 home kit launch. They have released a slew of singles and appeared on the Strummerville stage at Glastonbury in 2025. It is refreshing that on their upcoming tour they are supporting their local venues by performing two nights at the Snug in Atherton, unsurprisingly both already sold out.

It is always very odd attending nightclubs in the afternoon, thus after their set we re-emerged from the dingy den looking like vampires squinting into the bright light!  

Milestones Part 1 – Gigs

This week I am launching another new strand relating to the significant milestones I have achieved in my gig-going life thus far and this initial article concentrates solely on the gig numbers. I previously elucidated my interpretation of what constitutes a gig at some length in a blog that I drafted back in the mists of time named ‘Definition of a Gig and a Venue?’  

Thus, I won’t repeat my cogitations from there but will suffice myself with saying that as the years have progressed, my qualifying criteria of a ‘gig’ has softened immensely to allow more gigs to gain entry to the Jimmy Archives. Therefore, as long as I witness someone on a stage nowadays playing music, they can be counted!  

Everyone has a first gig and my contribution to that grand compendium was Slade at Lancaster University back in December 1983. My 50th was to see Wonderstuff and Darlings Buds at the fabulous Manchester International 1 and the 100th was Dinosaur Jr at Manchester Academy 2.

Darling Buds. Image Credit thenewvinylvillain.com

As I have got older, I seem to be attending an increasing number of events and the overall numbers have skyrocketed as a result, so much so that after a few cheeky gigs in Lanzarote, it became apparent that my next show at Manchester Gorilla on 13/05/22 would be my 1000th gig.

I am not going to list all my landmark gigs, but I will pick out some highlights, thus my 250th was my one ear splitting foray to watch My Bloody Valentine at Manchester Apollo on their comeback tour. I don’t think I am unique in saying that this was the loudest show I have ever attended, and I personally have a very high bar in that regard. I know a few readers on here saw their recent shows, but I decreed once was enough mainly because I have never worn ear plugs to gigs, probably to my own detriment, but I am too far down that path to change now!

My 500th was Cymbals down in the basement of Leeds Wardrobe with the 800th being the terrific Belly at Manchester Ritz, Tanya Donelly still having a terrific voice. Number 900 was Helicon at Manchester Peer Hat.

Since then, I have rattled upwards even further with Snuff being number 1200 at Manchester Breadshed, 1300 was Public Service Broadcasting at Manchester Albert Hall. I have also recently gone past the 1500 figure which was at a new venue so I will cover that one in a future article.  

Inadvertently, but somewhat appropriately on the night there was a proper gathering at my ‘chiliad’ (had to look that one up!) and chiliagon is also apparently a term for 1000-sided polygon, now thinking about it I cannot visualise the scale of that diagram and how that might look. Anyway, returning from my digression, Gill and I met Marcus initially for a cold one in the Lass O Gowrie.   

There was then a little breakdown in communication, but we managed to catch up with Tris in the Gorilla bar attached to the venue where she had run into a former colleague Andy and his friend Paul who were also attending the gig. Thankfully Tris had clocked that it was an early show starting at 8.30 so a quick drink, photo shoot and a scoot round to the entrance was in order.

Pre-gig team photo with L-R Tris, Andy, myself, Paul, Marcus and Gill. Image Credit kind anonymous punter.

We accessed the venue, and I was a little giddy as my usual reticence gave way to informing a couple of random punters that this was my 1000th show, either being met with ‘well done, that is a fine achievement’ or on the converse side total bemusement!

The band that night was Mattiel who constitute of singer/songwriter Atina Mattiel Brown and guitarist Jonah Swilley and originated from Atlanta, Georgia in 2015. Mattiel Brown was raised on a self-sustaining farm in a rural setting, which was apparently quite an isolated existence, and she threw herself with gusto into visual arts, which fed into her subsequent music creation.

When we saw them they were promoting their fine third album ‘Georgia Gothic’ and they had strengthened out the band with the addition of a bassist and a drummer, and they produced an enjoyable slab of garage rock. The downside was that the gig was over by 9.45pm and one couldn’t fail to notice many punters being caught out by the early show. I was almost craving gig 1001 to follow it but instead we headed to the hostelry, ending the evening in the Peveril of the Peak. 

Mattiel. Image Credit ATO Records.

Touching briefly on gigs attended with other people, I have individually attended over 500 gigs with both Gill and Uncle George and just under 300 with John Dewhurst. Also, Uncle G, John and I (The three stooges) have very recently just gone past 250 shows together.