The Manchester Retro Bar is located on Sackville Street, at the other end of Charles St from the Joshua Brooks pub and Factory 251 venue. It is situated underneath the train line at the mid-point between Oxford Road and Piccadilly. It is actually listed under the auspices of Manchester University as it resides in their North Campus area which houses the school of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. It is close by Vimto Gardens where the unusually large Vimto bottle and associated fruit is housed, which can clearly be seen when scooting past on the train.
Vimto Gardens. Image Credit mikkitiamo.com
It was originally called the Swinging Sporran, which was an archetypal biker’s rock bar. Due to its proximity, UMIST students also frequented, and it was the site of very early sets by the Chemical Brothers, who at the time were called the Dust Brothers. The Retro Bar has a modernist vibe and would not feasibly look out of place within a 1990’s housing estate as it is essentially a pub built into a car park! Gill and I stayed once at the hotel next door, now called Pendulum, in the days of affordable hotels in Manchester before they skyrocketed to the London prices now in place.
The Retro has a bar area at the ground level where they once filmed a concert scene in the Cold Feet TV series when John Thomson played drums for his son’s band. Downstairs is a 120 capacity club and live music venue which hosts regular shows. The Retro Bar closed for a spell in 2017 but was subsequently reopened later that year under the name of Hive. Perhaps living up to its original name I did discover that in the last couple of years Tiffany and Spear of Destiny’s 40th anniversary tour took place there with Kingmaker scheduled for September.
Retro Bar. Image Credit trustinns.co.uk
I had walked past the venue many times and noticed there was a live band scheduled to play on 28/02/13 when I was in town. Thus, after a Joy Formidable show at the Ritz I dragged Uncle George along to grab the opportunity to pay a visit prior to heading up to Piccadilly for the last train. The act that night was a local combo called Paper Tigers.
My second and only other visit was as the first venue of the Dot-to-Dot multi venue wristband event on 24/05/19. The act that afternoon was a 3-piece from Cheadle called Elephant and the Rider. They had an indie angular sound and had only issued a couple of EPs at that stage. They have just recently released a couple of further singles which are starting to garner some radio airplay and interest from BBC Introducing.
If you travel further down Sackville Street across Whitworth St West, you reach Manchester Tribeca located in the area of that name which skirts both Chinatown and the Gay Village much as it does in the original incarnation in New York. The literal translation of Tribeca is Triangle below Canal. This was our second location of the same Dot to Dot event referred above.
In a continuation of the attempted New York replication, the bar is multi-tiered with a mezzanine area by the entrance with comfy sofas then onto a raised area by the bar. Downstairs, in a bizarre twist you will find a lounge bar with real beds, appropriately named B.E.D! They also have additional spaces called Blue Lounge and Purple Lounge and there are regular DJ sets at the weekend running into the wee small hours.
Tribeca Bar. Image Credit licklist.co.uk
When we visited, we grabbed a stop in the upper bar with a view down to the makeshift stage which was located in front of the huge bay windows with the afternoon sun filtering through, it created a bonny vista.
There was a decent local singer/songwriter called James Holt playing. He had a challenging start to his life as he was diagnosed with bilateral moderate to severe hearing loss at the age of four. However, he didn’t let this define him by subsequently graduating with a first-class honour’s degree and MA in Music Composition at the University and Salford and then launching a musical career. He has recorded at Abbey Road Studios and has been cited as ‘fresh and exciting to listen to’ by the producer Brian Eno.
