Tag: Manchester Psych Fest

Manchester Venue 175 – Night People

Manchester Night People was located on Princess Street about equidistant between China Town and Canal Street, just around the corner from the Satan’s Hollow venue. I can find very scant history online for this establishment, but I think it opened in around 2017, and I believe it closed post-covid for a 6 month refurbishment, but it looks like it never subsequently reopened.

I visited there four times in total, and I know they were included on the Psych Fest roster, an event I have never yet attended but also for the now defunct Dot-to-Dot festival which I was present at for several years.

I recall they used to stage Northern Soul shindigs for the Twisted Wheel events and due to the age now of many of the participants they staged it on a Sunday afternoon. I am sure the intimate downstairs setting would have made it an ideal location for such a gathering, and I recently located a flyer of the legendary Geno Washington and the Ram Jam band playing there in 2018. I would estimate the capacity of the venue would have been somewhere around 200.

 

Night People flyer. Image Credit mdmarchive.co.uk

My first visit was in February 2018 in the company of one of my Northeast correspondents Jamie Young. We were already attending a gig at Night and Day that evening so grabbed the opportunity to undertake an earlier foray to the new venue on the block! We met initially in the iconic Marble Arch public house before sampling some tea at the Mackie Mayors food hall and then headed down to Night People.

The first act was the Mancunian band slowhandclap who appear to play a lot of gigs at the Northern Quarter venues, and they provided a slab on noisy post punk. Also on the bill were Chester two-piece DEH-YEY who like many duos produced a fair old racket of fuzzy dark sounds with the driving force being the guitarist/vocalist Cash Burns. They have released a slew of singles thus far and have garnered a support slot for the much touted Belfast band Enola Gay.  

Three months later as part of Dot to Dot we saw an American singer songwriter called Kyle Craft. He was born in an isolated Mississippi river town in Louisiana and his first introduction to guitar music was a random purchase of a David Bowie compilation at his local Kmart store.

I think we can all attest to our own individual epiphany to hearing music that will go on to change and influence our life. My personal individual ‘journey’ (a much over used reality show phrase nowadays) was via my dad’s Neil Young and my brother’s Husker Du records and also hearing Stiff Little Fingers for the first time as a young pup at an early school disco.

An early 2018 sighting of Fontaines DC at the venue. Image Credit whenthehornblows.com

Kyle subsequently moved to Texas, and he formed a band called Gashcat who then broke up a couple of years later with the slightly bizarre reasoning of ongoing adverse comparison to Neutral Milk Hotel! In 2016, he recorded his debut album ‘Dolls of Highland’ on Sub Pop Records and then gathered together a live band callee Showboat Honey and secured a support slot with Drive-By Truckers.  

On the afternoon I saw him they produced an excellent set of deep fried Southern rock , where I could hear shades of Green on Red, Lone Justice and The Band, his strong vocal complemented by a fine backing band was a good combination. My next trip was again linked to Dot-to-Dot and the band on show this time was a local combo called ELM.

My final visit was on 26th February 2020 when the spectre of Covid was just beginning to gather pace. I attended with my pal Paul Wilson who had other Preston folk in tow including Aidy and Janet from Lostock Hall. I recall we met in one of the Wetherspoons before having a bevy at the timeless Lass O Gowry. Throughout the gig between bands there was a DJ set from writer and broadcaster Dave Haslam who is primarily famous for being DJ for over 450 sets at the Hacienda nightclub incorporating a Thursday night residency at the Temperance club night from 1986 to 1990.  

The first act on stage was Mick O Toole and the main support were the Gallowgate Murders, a five-piece Celtic punk band from Edinburgh who had only formed the year before. The headliners were the Rumjacks, a rumbustious combo from Sydney in Australia who were also in the Celtic punk mould. They were formed in 2008 and they were renowned for their energetic live shows and lived up to their billing. Their most famous song ‘An Irish Pub Song’ went viral and has garnered over 85m hits on YouTube.

The Rumjacks. Image Credit iheart.com

I recall a generous chap we had never met buying us a round at the bar before Paul and I entered the thrashing, flailing white hot intensity of the mosh pit. It had been a fair while since I had been in such a vibrant pit and my first since turning 50, and I had to recalibrate instantly to peel off my outer layer of clothing and take my watch off for safe keeping and then dived back in.

It was a very small area not helped by some inopportune bruise inducing shelves around the perimeter, but we were in there for the last hour of the gig, and it was a bloody good sweaty fun, more so in hindsight when the first lockdown kicked in a couple of weeks later!

2023 Gigs – Part 1

Continuing the theme of previous years, I will now cover the 2023 gigs attended at venues already reviewed in previous blogs. Because I am sure you are desperate to know lets firstly cover the numbers bit! It turned out to be a record breaking year in that I attended 128 gigs in total which also encompassed 70 new venues.

So, I shall start with the familiar haunt of Manchester Academy 2 and cover my 41st and 42nd visits to that venue. In the cold depths of mid-winter in January Marcus and I headed there to witness the Delgados who are a four-piece band from Glasgow who produce some imaginative music. They formed in 1994 before disbanding in 2005 and then subsequently reformed in 2022 hence this comeback tour.

The Delgados. Image Credit nme.com

I had seen them once before on our honeymoon at Dublin Mean Fiddler in 1998 where they were on an excellent double bill with Nottingham’s Six By Seven. I thoroughly enjoyed their current incarnation as they cut an engaging presence on stage in front of a responsive crowd just glad to witness them back on the gig circuit and their tour culminated with a date in their home city.

The other attendance to Academy 2 also involved a further lengthy gap from my first sighting, in this case 20 years and one week exactly from when I witnessed the Northern Irish combo Therapy? at Preston Mill. Now to be fair I have always been fairly ambivalent about this band and their show on the night unfortunately didn’t alter my viewpoint.  

Prior to the gig there was an obligatory visit to the nearby mecca Manchester Big Hands where they periodically have live bands playing at the end of the room. That night I encountered a noisy Warrington psych rock band called Pray for Mojo who earlier in the year had graced the stage at Manchester Psych Fest. In 2022, they had released their debut album titled ‘Welcome to Mojopia’. They were supported by Swamp Kids.  

I shall now return to the Academy complex with a visit to Manchester Club Academy with the more than welcome return of the Raveonettes. The Copenhagen duo of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo were back on the circuit after a 4 year sabbatical. They were in fine form and played a greatest hits set with my personal highlight being one of their early singles ‘That Great Love Sound’. They were supported by local noiseniks Dr Dr.   

The Raveonettes. Image Credit discogs

Prior to night one of my Mogwai triple bill (over four nights and two cities) Gill and I grabbed a table and had an aperitif in the Manchester Blues Kitchen Bar. The act on stage whilst we primed ourselves for the upcoming aural assault were called Cry Wolf.   

The next gig derived from my very learned musical twitter (I still call it twitter!) pal @parramaterial who recommended Black Doldrums on their latest tour that included a date at Manchester Gullivers. Thus, the troops were enlisted and four of us popped over to have a gander and they were wholly worthy of the effort. Black Doldrums are a North London trio who released their debut album ‘Dead Awake’ in 2022 and they created a hugely enjoyable psych shoegaze cacophony on the night.

Black Doldrums. Image Credit louderthanwar.com

In June I had a foray over to Manchester Didsbury Park Green for the summer festival where a lass called Sally Smith was playing.  The following week another twitter recommendation resulting in four of us attending Manchester Yes Pink Room to watch Screaming Females. Their driving force was Marissa Paternoster who initially formed the band in 2005 at a high school in New Jersey.

Obscure fact time, she was referenced as the 77th greatest guitarist of all time in the Spin magazine in 2012. They released eight albums in total, all on the terrifically named Don Giovanni record label. I happened to catch them and their very decent stagecraft on their final ever tour as they subsequently broke up later in the year. 

The next two gigs to cover took place at Manchester Ritz where Tony Dewhurst, Rick Clegg, Barry Jury and I (Gang of Four) went to watch the Gang of Four who entertained with their angular post-punk sound. In October we managed to purchase tickets to see the Pretenders and the eternally youthful Chrissie Hynde. Unusually, on arrival the queue snaked back to beyond the Sainsburys on the corner, but we managed to enter the establishment just in time for their excellent show and her voice still sounds terrific. She dedicated one song to Johnny Marr, who was in the audience watching on his birthday.