Tag: Manchester Ritz

Manchester Venues 118 to 120

A couple of months ago in February 2024 I undertook a solo Friday night foray into the city to attend a gig at the Manchester Yes venue.  I had noted prior to setting out that there was an additional performance taking place in the Manchester Yes Roof Terrace which tallied up as my third separate venue in that establishment.  So up the stairs I headed to the top floor to catch Keltio (Nassa) & Josh.

Manchester Yes Roof Terrace. Image Credit Manchester Evening News

On that same night, in a break between sets of the band I had gone to see, I sallied next door to pay a quick visit to Manchester Lass O Gowrie. I have previously paid a fulsome homage in an earlier blog to this venue, and I will not repeat myself here, but suffice to say I have an enduring affection for this venerable old public house. It has many original features and was named after the title of a poem scribed by Scottish poet Lady Caroline Nairne.

The one element I had missed was the opportunity to catch live music there. This omission was rectified on this night by a performance from Tom Fairview and also by earlier performances in February 2022 from the Blues Boys and Tom Mooney who all played towards the back of the pub near the entrance to the beer garden area. To square the circle the latter performance referenced was prior to attending a Nordic Giants show at the Pink Room venue in Yes.

So, one further tale pertaining to Lass O Gowrie if I may. One of my very learned Twitter muso contacts Cath Aubergine brought to my attention a remarkable and unexpected gig she attended there in 2012. There was apparently a monthly residency around that time run by Valentine Records called TAGO>MAGO>, at their final event they became aware of the fact that Damo Suzuki of Can fame was in the country and remarkably managed to persuade him to play a backstreet pub in Manchester.

Lass O Gowrie pub with the Yes venue in the foreground. Image Credit oxfordroadcorridor.com

In my previous Lass O Gowrie blog, I told the story of seeing the cast of Coronation Street in residence at the pub. This must have been a running theme as on the night of the Damo gig the cast of Waterloo Road had a bit of a do there and some of the crew were still in the venue when the gig took place.

When you reach the bottom of the steps adjacent to Manchester Oxford Road station you discover a triangle of pubs, The Salisbury, Thirsty Scholar and Manchester Grand Central. The latter named is a four-storey building located on Oxford Road directly opposite the Principal Hotel. The pub is placed within what was known in 1820 as ‘Little Ireland’, an exceedingly poverty hit slum area at that time. In 1900 the landlord Peter Bostock was listed as one of the licensees who were suspected of selling unadulterated beer which resulted in arsenic poising causing 70 deaths.

It has had many names over the years, Oxford Wine Bar, The Oxford, Schooner Inn, Cork & Screw, The Shady Lady and Beef & Barley (a Steak House). The current name was based on the proximity to the nearby station and a nod to the more well known New York train station. They used to have a club downstairs called Subway which closed in 2002 but there is current talk of possibly reopening it.  The pub was a regular stopping point for punters visiting prior to attending the now defunct Jillys Rockworld nightclub.

Grand Central pub. Image Credit myhospitalitysolutions.co.uk

The musical genre of the establishment is strictly in the rock/metal domain, similar to the Pub in Lancaster. They used to hold a Tuesday night Battle for Bloodstock event with local bands competing for a slot at the Bloodstock Metal Festival in Derby. Additionally, bands play free of charge on a Thursday though that seems to have thinned out in recent years.

I have attended three times, and they are all either before or after scheduled gigs at nearby venues. My first attendance was in November 2012 prior to a Tame Impala gig at the Ritz and the band on stage that night were called Gridlocked. I visited four months later and saw Deformation of Man from Sheffield and their heavy sound had them being hailed as the Steel City’s answer to Lamb of God. My final appearance was in July 2018 where I witnessed another noisy combo called Prometheus.

Gigs from Aboard Part 13 Vietnam – Part 2

We continued our Vietnam trip in 2014/15 by heading over to Phu Quoc, an island off the south coast where we spent Christmas Day and the trickiest challenge whilst there was to decide whether I preferred either Saigon Red or Saigon Green beer (for the record it was a marginal preference for the Green).  

When we were sat outside the cabin one evening, we witnessed the surreal sight of a cockerel casually walking down the path and then up the steps of the lodgings opposite. It then proceeded to tap its beak on the door and waited patiently, after two attempts with no reply it retraced its route and strutted off into the sunset.

‘Not the actual cockerel’. Image Credit raising-happy-chickens.com

I was at that point checking that I wasn’t drinking a Saigon ‘special’ beer but then gathered the intel from our neighbours that the previous owners had been feeding it, but they had flown home that morning leaving our resident cockerel shy of a snack that evening. This event reminded me of a story in Paul Auster’s ‘True Tales of American Life’, a book I would heartily recommend.  

Our next destination was Hoi An, with its ancient town and bustling marketplace and excellent food. We hired bicycles for a couple of days and cycled out to the nearby beach and into the residential areas where the tannoy’s on the street spouted out their ongoing Government propaganda.

When we were in a particularly touristy area of Singapore, we were stung with a beer price of nearly £10 (near to Manchester Ritz prices!), but in total contrast in one restaurant in Hoi An I obviously had to sample their local moonshine beer at 42p a pint. Unsurprisingly it was pretty poor fare! As we had been away for a sustained period, there was one night where we craved some different food. In this regard, we discovered a nearby Australian diner called Dingo Deli where we feasted on some excellent cheese on toast and drinkable coffee!   

Dingo Deli. Image Credit tripadvisor.jn.

On New Years Eve we headed down to the busy bars at Hoi An Harbour where they had set up a big stage for the celebrations, and performing was a local act called Louie, who were then followed by a fireworks display.  The only downside was the monsoon weather, so we saw the New Year in with a very tasty doughnut from a street trader before heading back to our digs.

A couple of days later we walked past Hoi An Que Nha Bar on the way to a restaurant and intriguingly we could see a stage set up. We passed a couple of hours later and the place was in full flow, and we were encouraged through the door by the local punters outside. To our astonishment we were provided front row seats in the packed bar resulting in envious glances from later attendees.  

Hoi An river view. Image Credit pinterest.

The venue was in effect a karaoke bar with backing music provided by a band called Hang Truang. We had no idea of the required etiquette as we crouched down on the little stools, but gathered quickly that karaoke was a serious business here and is all about the audience reaction though it turns out we had vastly different viewpoints than the other customers.

One singer who we thought was high quality was subjected to a brutally complete silence at the end of the track, but another performer who literally murdered ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles was rewarded with roses thrown on the stage. I also unintentionally caused a bit of chaos by breaking the lavatory door, and I had only had a couple of drinks! We stayed for about an hour and thoroughly enjoyed our karaoke experience and it was a fascinating insight into the local culture.