Tag: Manchester Star and Garter

2025 Gigs – Part 2

I will continue my tales of 2025 gigs with Manchester St Ann’s Square where they have regular events around key dates of the year, for example St Patricks Day. At three at those singular events at different points, I saw the Bovver Boys, Barry’s Brass Band and a singer called Gwenda.  

Nearby to Manchester Piccadilly station resides the old atmospheric venue Manchester Star and Garter where in February I fell into capturing a small segment of an all-day gig there and witnessed some thunderous grindcore from local noiseniks Burnt Body, though I did sagaciously decide to abstain on the moshpit duties at that one!

Burnt Body. Image Credit facebook.com

In July I saw a Philadelphia ska punk act called Catbite whose chief vocalist was a lass called Brittany Luna who had previously trained as a jazz singer. She has recently performed with Laura Jane Grace who was previously the lead singer of Against Me, a band I saw on my 42nd birthday back in 2010. The duo performed some shows primarily paying a homage to Operation Ivy, a short-lived band who were a forerunner of the California ‘East Bay Sound’ in the late 1980’s. In the next step of the family tree two members of the Ivy then set up Rancid in 1991 who are still playing to this day.

In May I returned to the Academy complex for my 101st gig across all their four sites, this particular one taking place at Manchester Club Academy. My enigmatic pal Matty Allen is a Death Metal guru and had for a spell been jokingly sending me gig invites for various events, and I finally threw him a curve ball by accepting an interesting sounding one.  Another friend at work Ben, let’s call him Death Metal guru 2 was also knowledgeable and approving of the bands on the roster.

Thus Matty, his mate Rob and I gathered in Big Hands prior to the gig and had a conflab in their roof garden. The support band were called Cryptopsy who are from Montreal and were formed in 1988 and are now nine albums into their lineage. They were my preferred act on the evening, and the drummer Flo Mournier was particularly impressive, and they also used to have a vocalist with the jocular name of Lord Worm.

The headliners were Decapitated from Poland who formed in 1996 with the members ranging from 12 to 16 at that stage. They suffered untold tragedy in 2007 when the original drummer died in a car crash at the age of 23. They are regularly touted as one of the key proponents of the genre.

An additional observance of the crowd is that due to the intense nature of the music you could perhaps surmise they may have more of an aggressive outlook, but they were in fact one of the friendliest audiences I have ever encountered with a refreshing lack of phones in my eyeline.

Mani. Image Credit yahoo.com

At the nearby Manchester Academy, I caught Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for the sixth time and a full decade since my last sighting, they were playing the ‘Howl’ album which was celebrating its 20th anniversary. It is a softer sounding record but still contains some terrific tunes with ‘Complicated Situation’ being my fave. They were in good form and included a touching tribute to Mani, who had passed away three weeks earlier, by playing a solo acoustic Stone Roses track with full audience singalong.        

Prior to the gig at the aforementioned Manchester Big Hands, I saw a fuzzy and noisy garage rock band called Ahmed & The Romans who contained in their ranks three Italians and the lead singer Ahmed who is an Anglo-Egyptian. 

At the tail end of September Marcus and I trundled into Manchester Yes Basement. The band in question were called The Pill, an act that we had both simultaneously heard playing and being interviewed on Steve Lamacq’s 6 music show. Texts were instantly sent confirming that our interests were piqued and tickets were swiftly purchased.

The Pill. Image Credit genius.com

The Pill consist of spiky female duo Lily Hutchings and Lottie Massey from the Isle of Wight. They derive from the island that has recently spawned the not dissimilar Wet Leg and also Coach Party. They happened on a musical career via an unusual route as they started with the creation of a punk rock Pinocchio digital puppet show. They began to receive a considerable and unexpected following, and the band was the natural next step though Lily had never played before, so she actually learnt the guitar for the formation of the combo!

On the night, they were bloody good fun with tracks such as ‘Woman Driver’ and ‘Scaffolding Man’ with their whip smart lyrics that many prehistoric men would take literally and simply not have a scoobie that they were taking the proverbial!

Manchester Venues 140 to 141

If you head out the back exit of Piccadilly station you drop initially to the metro level and then the escalator gravitates down again to Fairfield Street at ground level and the accompanying taxi rank. Just beyond the cabs is a lift that takes you up to Platform 12 and then onto the next level and into the waiting area outside Platform 13 and 14. For more unscrupulous punters it could be used as a ticket barrier avoidance route!

Piccadilly Station with the lift in the right of picture. Image Credit showmethejourney.com

There are a plethora of breweries near the station ensconced in back streets and railway sidings. If you walk down Baring Street, you reach the hidden oasis of Mayfield Park, the 6.5 acre environmental green space encompassing the River Medlock which is the city’s first green space for over 100 years. To illustrate the industrial heritage of the area, thirteen Victorian wells were discovered in the construction and three were identified as still functional thus were then utilised to provide 20 cubic metres of water each to maintain the vegetation.  

Heading back from the park you would find yourself at Mayfield Depot which contains Escape to Freight Island with all their food and drink stalls and is also the location for conferences and fashion shows alongside the immensely popular Warehouse Project dance events. When waiting for later trains home on the overhead vantage point of Platform 14 I have regularly borne witness to the most extraordinary queues of customers awaiting access.  

Mayfield Park. Image Credit placenorthwest.co.uk

There was previously a venue alongside the Depot called the Fairfield Social Club on the wonderfully named Temperance Street where I once had tickets for a gig but unfortunately, they upgraded the show to another venue, and I never managed to attend there prior to its subsequent closure. It does now appear they have reopened Fairfield but in a different location over in Ancoats, near the Blackjack brewery, and they hold regular comedy nights there.   

Back on Fairfield St, you find one of Manchester’s most distinctive institutions, namely Manchester Star and Garter, the name of the establishment derives from the insignia pertaining to the Order of the Garter. It was originally built in 1803 outside the train station which had several monikers, including London Road prior to the current Piccadilly name. The build of the rail link to Oxford Road station in 1849 necessitated a brick by brick 100-yard movement of the venue, with its subsequent reopening in 1877.

Its initial incarnation was as a hotel containing an in house brewery. In 1986, the closure of the adjacent Mayfield station caused a chain reaction of the hotel also ceasing trading, and the area morphed into a brief ‘Dirty Old Town’ period. The building gained Grade II listed status in 1988 and reopened in 1991 as a live music site with its current pub and upstairs club lay out and has thrived despite its unusual location. It currently has a large Ian Curtis mural on one of its side walls.

It was threatened with closure again in the last couple of decades with the potential Northern hub expansion of the railway station. Their future however was solidified in 2020 with a ten year lease being purchased under the auspices of Mayfield Partnership.

It has been used as a location for many TV series including Band of Gold, Cracker, Prime Suspect and most extensively the recent Russell T Davies scripted landmark drama ‘It’s A Sin’. The venue is renowned for indie nights, Smile running for 20 years from 1993 to 2013 and the famous Smiths night which has been running for an even longer period than that.

The Star and Garter. Image Credit NME

It has hosted many diverse groups including Anti-Nazi league meetings, the 30-strong WBA supporters club of Manchester, Vampire Society and a comic night called Anti-Hoot which included the semi-legendary Bolton poet Hovis Presley!  It has mainly a rock/metal roster and was once coined as the ‘Temple of Doom’. Bands that have played there including Half Man Half Biscuit, Discharge, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, Low and remarkably Status Quo in 1999.

For many years I intended to visit but without success, until finally a gig was located, and a sabbatical trip was arranged in March 2015. It does look a little like a haunted house from the outside, evoking comparisons to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer ‘Fear Itself’ episode, but that was instantly dispelled by the warm welcome in the downstairs bar!  We then sallied up to the 200 capacity venue room and the first act on stage was You Want Fox, a noisy female two-piece from Nottingham.

The headline act was the East Town Pirates who travelled in from Ipswich to air their stompy sea shanties and have been referenced as sounding like ‘Motorhead meets the Pogues’. I returned once more in 2022 to see a band called the Reverbs.

In December 2021, local legend Tim Burgess put on a record fair themed event which had a novel set taking place on a Sunday lunchtime at the Manchester Piccadilly Station Mezzanine. The first challenge was actually finding this location and it transpired to be in the aforementioned metro entry level. By the time we found the spot, we only caught the last three tracks of an acoustic set from Starsailor’s James Walsh, who had an appropriate fine busker’s voice which matched the setting!