Tag: Manchester Ritz

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.  

Manchester Venues 133 to 134

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.