Tag: Manchester Joshua Brooks

Liverpool Venues 17 to 20

I return this week to the endless plethora of Irish bars in Liverpool where live music seems to be taking place on a seemingly constant basis. First up I shall cover the Liverpool Irish House, which is located on the busy vibrant Ranelagh Street, residing next door to Lanigans Bar.  

It has a large main room with the traditional wood surrounds, complete with the scarf and flag adornments dotted all around the walls and ceilings. There was wall to wall sport showing on the multiple big screens and they also have regular live music taking place there and, on my visit, I saw a chap called Seamus playing on a small stage in the corner.  

Over on Great Charlotte Street you wouldfind Liverpool Nelly Foleys which is an archetypal faux décor Irish bar which consists primarily of one sizeable room and has the seemingly obligatory cheap drink offers. It is an eminently forgettable establishment with the dark spectre of karaoke also on its roster. I have visited just the once and I saw a chap called Freddie playing there.   

Nelly Foleys. Image Credit nearer.com

Also, on that old main drag you have Liverpool Grand Central Smokie Mo’s, part of a brand chain that has had a suite of branches around Liverpool ever since they were founded back in 2007. They are named after the owner Maureen Blackwell, who was already an established leisure industry operator.

She also has been commendably responsible for setting up the Top of Town cards scheme which issued out over 35,000 cards to local pensioners to enable them to be eligible to purchase cheaper drinks. To link the establishments together, it is worth noting that Mo is the daughter of the aforementioned Nelly Foley.

They had previous sites in the Mount Pleasant and Mathew Street areas before the Lord Mayor opened a larger venue in 2019 within the Grand Central complex, the location of which had previously housed the Barcelona Bar and Quiggins.

The new establishment encountered financial challenges as the landlady was involved in a long running £1.2m rent dispute concerning water issues and dry rot which had been encountered in the old building. It escalated at one stage in 2022 to her being locked out of the entire site when she returned one morning from buying the staff breakfast at the local Greggs, resulting most importantly in the bacon butties going cold!

The Smokie Mo’s joints are known for their American-themed layout and décor, and they stage drag queen nights and regular live music nights. On the evening of my visit there was a male vocalist on stage called Paul Gillies who plays there regularly.    

Post pandemic there was a Grand Central Irish Village created within the auspices of the Grade II listed Grand Central Hall on Renshaw Street. This contains the two previously mentioned bars and also incorporates Roe’s Bar and The Liffey.

New Century Picture House. Image Credit reddit.com

It originally opened as a Methodist church in 1905 and still contains the 100-year-old pipe organ. It also housed the New Century Picture Hall cinema and from 1933 to 1939 it was the temporary home of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra whilst their bespoke venue was being repaired after a fire.

The rental dispute referenced above subsequently resulted in the bars moving out of the village alongside the Grand Bazaar food hall. Thus, the modern-day complex now contains an art nouveau Grand Central Hotel which has 46 rooms and an expanded Liverpool Dome. The Dome now has a 3576-capacity venue and stages Irish festivals, cabarets and champions league nights as well as numerous live gigs. Upcoming gigs on the roster include The Coral and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Liverpool Dome. Image Credit flickr.com

It originally opened in 2011. The refurbishments eleven years later included improvements to all aspects of the venue to cope with the increased capacity. My one attendance thus far was earlier this year as part of the Sound City festival, and I was impressed as it was a terrific old fashioned style venue.

The band playing was Corella who met whilst at university in Manchester and initially started to receive some attention when their single ‘Barcelona Girl’ gained some airplay on ITV’s Good Morning show. They have gradually moved up from the ‘trainee’ Joshua Brooks and Zombie Shack venues up to headlining New Century Hall later this year. They got an appreciative reaction from the audience and reminded me somewhat of the Beta Band.

Manchester Venues 147 to 148 – Royal Northern College of Music

As you progress down Oxford Road towards the Academy venues you reach the traffic light junction with Booth Street West and on that very corner is the Manchester Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). Just beyond there is a recently developed retail area containing a Brewdog outpost and a branch of the omnipresent fast food chain Five Guys.

Across the road from the RNCM for many years resided the Phoenix public house, previously Barney McGrews, situated under the precinct. I can find records of the Phoenix being around since the 1970’s and in those days, it was a punky biker venue where upstairs they held sweaty club nights under the Tangled or Acid Rock monikers.

Phoenix pub. Image Credit manchestersfinest.com

Live music was staged there from 1977 onwards on the Bass Charrington pub rock circuit roster. There are scant details of bands but can find evidence of Aqua, a Burnage High school band, (does that scenario sound familiar?) who played there the following year with Graham Massey of 808 State in their ranks. They are absolutely not to be confused with the other band with the same name who release ‘Barbie Girl’ a couple of decades later!  

It was a renowned student haunt due to its proximity to the universities. It became more of a drum and bass venue in the 1990’s and Clint Boon, Mani and Piccadilly Records used to undertake DJ nights there.  Around the time I visited, it had morphed into an ‘It’s a Scream’ chain pub with bright yellow frontage and was in a very tired state by then. It subsequently closed its doors for the final time in 2011.

The RNCM was officially opened in its current location on 28 June 1973 and was a fusion of the Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM), which opened in 1893 with original principal being Sir Charles Halle and the Northern School of Music, founded in 1920.

Its remit encompasses musical education and contains two thriving public performance venues alongside a smaller recital room and theatre, the latter two spaces are utilised in the main for educational and conference events. The college was subject to a £7.1m refurbishment in November 2014 across all areas including a new lighting rig and sound equipment. Previous alumni naturally contains many illustrious conductors and composers and also Howard Jones!  

RNCM. Image Credit Royal Northern College of Music.

The first venue I will cover is the Royal Northern College of Music Concert Hall which has a fixed seating of either 443 or 598 with an additional balcony setting raising the maximum capacity to 710. The layout ensures that all of the seating encircles the stage in the middle of the room and ensures a good view from all vantage points. They have a constant diverse roster of performances and previous acts to play there include Adele, David Byrne, Hugh Laurie, Halle Orchestra and Jarvis Cocker. Filming has also taken place there for television shows Waterloo Road and Question Time.

My first attendance was in November 2013, and I had an unusual journey there. On the day I needed to attend a workshop in the glamorous location of Telford, thus caught a train from there direct to Manchester and met up with the rest of the crew in the Joshua Brooks public house. I recall we also visited the Sand Bar and naturally gravitated to our usual nearby noodle bar for some tea.

As you enter the RNCM building there is initially a bar and café area before you reach the venue hall at the end of the corridor. They adopt a similar policy to the Royal Albert Hall where you could not take drinks into the venue and if returning from a comfort break you had to wait until the current track finished before you can grab your seat again.

The act that day was the incomparable Mark Lanegan, personally one of my Top 5 favourite vocalists with his gravelly ‘lived in’ unique delivery. He was touring his recent album ‘Imitations’ which featured cover versions of tracks by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Nancy Sinatra and John Cale.

On the night he undertook an excellent version of Bobby Darin’s ‘Mack the Knife’ and Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite of Love’, the latter especially poignant as Lou had recently passed away. I have just read this week of a hugely emotional concert held with guest artists to celebrate what would have been Mark’s 60th birthday, he is sorely missed.

Mark Lanegan. Image Credit mubi.com

I had one other attendance there a couple of years later to see Mercury Rev and I spotted John Robb in the audience. The band were in a particularly noisy mode that evening with some guitar heavy tracks in the set, which suited me down to the ground!

The other venue is the Royal Northern College of Music Theatre which has fixed seating capacity of 600 plus the option to have additional removable pit seats. This is a more traditional ‘cinema style’ setting and I have visited there just the once in October 2023. We went to see a play called New Dawn Fades which chronicles the story of Joy Division which contain live songs with a full band. It is written and directed by Brian Gorman who also takes an acting role as Factory boss Tony Wilson.  It was pretty well made but the second half of it leading to Ian Curtis’s suicide was understandably very bleak viewing.