Tag: Manchester White Hotel

2024 Gigs – Part 1

After a slow start to the year due to some ill health my numbers then increased exponentially to reach a personal best figure of 143 gigs for 2024. My current total for 2025 suggests I have a decent chance though of surpassing that figure this year. As with all previous annual updates I will cover only the venues that I have already reviewed in previous blogs.

Where shall we start? I guess a good as place as any is the old stalwart Manchester Academy 1. I visited there in February for the 32nd time and as a result also reached another milestone as it was my 100th visit to the entire Academy complex (includes also 42 gigs at Academy 2, 19 at Academy 3 and 7 at Club Academy). My century being achieved a small matter of 36 years and 7 days since my first attendance at Academy 2 in February 1988 to see Wedding Present.

Slowdive. Image Credit NME.

I also had the veritable bonus of finally after a few years of correspondence meeting the music aficionado and musician Andrea for a quick drink prior to the event. The gig itself was my first ever sighting of the now revered shoegazers Slowdive. The band formed in Reading in 1989 and subsequently broke up in 1995 after the release of their third album ‘Pygmalion’. Some of the members formed a splinter group called Mojave 3 before Slowdive reformed for Primavera in 2014 and have since released two albums, the latter ‘Everything is Alive’ achieving a Top Ten placing in several countries.    

The venue was as busy as I have ever witnessed it, and I managed to snuggle into a spot about halfway in on the left-hand side. There was a considerably more youthful crowd than I had anticipated, and it has now become apparent that shoegaze is now being heard by a fresh new generation. The band had a compelling presence, and it was an enjoyably immersive experience.

They were supported by some newer kids on the block, Whitelands, who have been playing since 2017 and had just released their debut album on the legendary Sonic Cathedral record label.  On the night, I also made the inadvertent discovery for the first time of the infinitely quieter upstairs bar!

There was a sojourn in June with my brother-in law Phil to Manchester Old Trafford Cricket Ground as a wingman to see the Foo Fighters on Day 2 of their residency there. We had a couple of scoops prior in Chorlton whilst dodging the rain showers and en route to the ground made a virgin visit to the old Holts brewery pub The Quadrant.

The Quadrant pub. Image Credit flickr.com

There were some painfully slow ticket queues reminding me why I very rarely attend stadium gigs. We sallied about and stood in different spots for their near three hour set. Dave Grohl always cuts a charismatic presence and his swear box was overflowing by the end of the show!

There was a visit to Stockport Rock Salt Café in Moor Top in August where I saw a chap called Eddie performing and just before Christmas, I watched the oddly named Liffey St featuring Eoin Griffin & Mixi Toal at Stockport Cassidy’s in Heaton Moor.

I made another pilgrimage to the Sounds from the Other City festival (SFTOC) in Salford. First port of call was the Manchester Pint Pot Upstairs where I witnessed the Manchester three-piece Shell Company. They had a brooding electronic sound topped off by spoken word poetry from their vocalist Rosebella Allen and have released records that were recorded at the White Hotel venue.

In Manchester Pint Pot Downstairs we could barely scramble through the door to obtain a sighting of Thraa, a Manchester drone duo consisting of Sally Mason and Andi Jackson. They were both in other bands before forming this one and have garnered support slots with Lorelle Meets The Obsolete. They were intriguing as they employed two guitars and threw away traditional song structures to produce shards of sounds, sometimes minimalist and sometimes rather joyously noisy!

Just around the corner in Manchester St Phillips Church we caught a singer called BEATRICE, which I cannot find any information about. Further down the A6 brought you to the vibrant communal area and the Manchester Bexley Square Live Tent where Meme Good were noisily cooking up a storm on the stage. In the nearby fine hostelry Manchester New Oxford, I saw a combo called Fellowship.

St Phillips Church. Image Credit manchesterhistory.net

We then pottered over to the busy hub of Manchester Islington Mill Courtyard where in the outside area alongside the bars and pizza huts, we saw and heard the synth sounds of local musician Sarah Bates. Her career commenced as a solo vocalist and at one stage worked with the legendary producer Nile Rodgers.

Back under the roof in Manchester Islington Mill Mirage Bar we witnessed a portion of Chermonseg’s set. Down the corridor in Manchester Islington Mill Partisan Bar we saw Zolatec who is a drum and bass artist. She was born in Leicester with the name of Ayeshah but is also known under the stage name of Zola Steelpan, reflecting the influence of that particular instrument in her repertoire. She is a festival stalwart and has performed at the Notting Hill Carnival.

2022 Gigs – Part 2

I am continuing the tale this week of the 2022 gigs I attended at venues already covered in previous blogs.

Every year, there will always be gigs that I go to in one of the Academy sites and I am rapidly closing in on 100 gigs in total across their four venues, all since I attended my first ever, namely Wedding Present at Academy 2 in February 1988. Thirty-four years later In February 2022 I attended Manchester Academy 2 again to see Dry Cleaning with Graham Jones in tow.

They are a post-punk band with a distinctive lead vocal from Florence Shaw interspersed with spoken word lyrics and they later in the year released their second album ‘Stumpwork’ containing the catchy single ‘Gary Ashby’. That night I also finally managed to make a visit to the Old Abbey Taphouse, a community pub located in Hulme near to Manchester science park where they undertake sporadic gigs and I hope to return at some point to attend an event.    

Old Abbey Taphouse. Image Credit Manchester Evening News.

A month later I returned to Academy 2 to see Warmduscher, a post punk band from London for whom Mark Reilly from 6 Music is a keen advocate. I personally didn’t warm to their sound, but their twitchy energetic lead singer Craig Louis Higgins Jr (Clams Baker) was an interesting presence. It was also a landmark gig numerically as it transpired to be my 500th gig in Manchester.  My final visit there was in June to see Dave Wakeling’s Beat, one of the two splinter groups out there touring who emanated from the original Beat.

In September I headed to Manchester Academy 1 to finally witness Godspeed You! Black Emperor who formed in Montreal, Canada in 1994. They are a Canadian instrumental post-rock combo who provide sweeping soaring soundscapes and apart from the slightly dizzying visual screens behind them they were a terrific live proposition.

I was in tow with Uncle George and John Dewhurst, the latter previously saw Godspeed in Planet K in 2000 on the same night that George and I saw Trail of the Dead at the Roadhouse a couple of streets away, that was one noisy night in Manchester!

Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Image Credit Chicago Tribune.

On my birthday weekend in June, Gill and I went for a meal at a local restaurant on the Thursday before the following night heading to Manchester Ritz to watch Lovely Eggs. It was their biggest ever gig and they were as vibrant as ever. Holly was in a particularly combative mood, exemplified by her justifiably and scathingly condemning the security staff when they aborted her plans to undertake the final of a stage diving contest. Her wrath was only increased by the fact that prior approval had been sought and obtained but then ignored. They were supported by Thick Richard on the night.  

On the Saturday we stayed over in Preston after attending a family barbecue before travelling back over to Manchester on the Sunday prior to another gig at Manchester Apollo. We were off to see Yeah Yeah Yeahs but at one point in the early evening Gill bandied about the phrase that our attendance looked more like a ‘No No No’, however our gig stamina kicked in and we shuffled off to the venue.  

I had never previously seen them and was anticipating a good one and my preconceptions were met fully as they were superb and lead singer Karen O had a hypnotic presence on stage, English Teacher were the support band.  

I attended there again in November to see Sigur Ros and visited the Aspley Cottage pub next door for the first time in 14 years and the hostelry was refreshingly unchanged. I met up with Barry Jury and a couple of his pals and Sigur provided an epic 2-hour set.   

The final venue to reference is the ever-reliable Manchester Night and Day. In June we attended to see The Courettes with our friends Jo and Paul. The band are jointly from Denmark and Brazil and perhaps best fit under the Spector Wall of Sound genre. They were good fun and had a very keen tendency to keep shouting out the phrase ‘Come on Manchester’! They also bravely asked the audience to crouch on the knees for a sustained period during one song, which was a challenge for the majority of the audience, including me!   

My final appearance to Night and Day was somewhat accidental in that I was scheduled to attend the White Hotel in Salford for the first time, but the gig was cancelled. Not wanting to totally kibosh the evening I found an alternate gig involving an artist I would not normally pay to watch but I was so glad we did.

The night started with meeting Uncle George in Piccadilly Central bar (previously Monroes) near Piccadilly train station and some tea in Ning on Oldham Street. When we arrived at the venue, it was all seated at the front and we managed to grab a pew at the side of the stage.

The support was Peter Bruntwell and the main act was a sprightly 74 year old called Bill Kirchen who has been quantified as the ‘Titan of the Telecaster’ for his terrific guitar work and has collaborated over the years with Nick Lowe, Gene Vincent, Link Wray and Elvis Costello. With the latter he penned a remarkable tune called ‘There is a Man at the Bottom of the Well’ with Elvis’s laconic delivery and the line ‘is he looking down from heaven or staring up at hell’ which he played on the night.

Bill Kirchen on stage. Image Credit gigharbourmarina.com

His outro was remarkable as he played a medley of around thirty high quality, seamless short segments of artists including Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Nirvana and AC/DC. It resembled the best ‘Stars on 45’ you could ever wish to hear and something I have never seen in 38 years of watching gigs!