Manchester Venues 147 to 148 – Royal Northern College of Music

As you progress down Oxford Road towards the Academy venues you reach the traffic light junction with Booth Street West and on that very corner is the Manchester Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). Just beyond there is a recently developed retail area containing a Brewdog outpost and a branch of the omnipresent fast food chain Five Guys.

Across the road from the RNCM for many years resided the Phoenix public house, previously Barney McGrews, situated under the precinct. I can find records of the Phoenix being around since the 1970’s and in those days, it was a punky biker venue where upstairs they held sweaty club nights under the Tangled or Acid Rock monikers.

Phoenix pub. Image Credit manchestersfinest.com

Live music was staged there from 1977 onwards on the Bass Charrington pub rock circuit roster. There are scant details of bands but can find evidence of Aqua, a Burnage High school band, (does that scenario sound familiar?) who played there the following year with Graham Massey of 808 State in their ranks. They are absolutely not to be confused with the other band with the same name who release ‘Barbie Girl’ a couple of decades later!  

It was a renowned student haunt due to its proximity to the universities. It became more of a drum and bass venue in the 1990’s and Clint Boon, Mani and Piccadilly Records used to undertake DJ nights there.  Around the time I visited, it had morphed into an ‘It’s a Scream’ chain pub with bright yellow frontage and was in a very tired state by then. It subsequently closed its doors for the final time in 2011.

The RNCM was officially opened in its current location on 28 June 1973 and was a fusion of the Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM), which opened in 1893 with original principal being Sir Charles Halle and the Northern School of Music, founded in 1920.

Its remit encompasses musical education and contains two thriving public performance venues alongside a smaller recital room and theatre, the latter two spaces are utilised in the main for educational and conference events. The college was subject to a £7.1m refurbishment in November 2014 across all areas including a new lighting rig and sound equipment. Previous alumni naturally contains many illustrious conductors and composers and also Howard Jones!  

RNCM. Image Credit Royal Northern College of Music.

The first venue I will cover is the Royal Northern College of Music Concert Hall which has a fixed seating of either 443 or 598 with an additional balcony setting raising the maximum capacity to 710. The layout ensures that all of the seating encircles the stage in the middle of the room and ensures a good view from all vantage points. They have a constant diverse roster of performances and previous acts to play there include Adele, David Byrne, Hugh Laurie, Halle Orchestra and Jarvis Cocker. Filming has also taken place there for television shows Waterloo Road and Question Time.

My first attendance was in November 2013, and I had an unusual journey there. On the day I needed to attend a workshop in the glamorous location of Telford, thus caught a train from there direct to Manchester and met up with the rest of the crew in the Joshua Brooks public house. I recall we also visited the Sand Bar and naturally gravitated to our usual nearby noodle bar for some tea.

As you enter the RNCM building there is initially a bar and café area before you reach the venue hall at the end of the corridor. They adopt a similar policy to the Royal Albert Hall where you could not take drinks into the venue and if returning from a comfort break you had to wait until the current track finished before you can grab your seat again.

The act that day was the incomparable Mark Lanegan, personally one of my Top 5 favourite vocalists with his gravelly ‘lived in’ unique delivery. He was touring his recent album ‘Imitations’ which featured cover versions of tracks by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Nancy Sinatra and John Cale.

On the night he undertook an excellent version of Bobby Darin’s ‘Mack the Knife’ and Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite of Love’, the latter especially poignant as Lou had recently passed away. I have just read this week of a hugely emotional concert held with guest artists to celebrate what would have been Mark’s 60th birthday, he is sorely missed.

Mark Lanegan. Image Credit mubi.com

I had one other attendance there a couple of years later to see Mercury Rev and I spotted John Robb in the audience. The band were in a particularly noisy mode that evening with some guitar heavy tracks in the set, which suited me down to the ground!

The other venue is the Royal Northern College of Music Theatre which has fixed seating capacity of 600 plus the option to have additional removable pit seats. This is a more traditional ‘cinema style’ setting and I have visited there just the once in October 2023. We went to see a play called New Dawn Fades which chronicles the story of Joy Division which contain live songs with a full band. It is written and directed by Brian Gorman who also takes an acting role as Factory boss Tony Wilson.  It was pretty well made but the second half of it leading to Ian Curtis’s suicide was understandably very bleak viewing.

Manchester Venue 102 – Bridgewater Hall

Just down from St Peters Square whilst following the tram line back to Deansgate station you pass the grand building of Manchester Bridgewater Hall on the left-hand side. Nearby down some steps you would find the Piano and Pitcher which we used to occasionally frequent. This has in recent years adopted the contemporary trend by morphing into a large food hall called Society with various vendors and craft beers available, I visited there a couple of months ago and had a rather tidy but overpriced Tiffin Box. Your nearest hostelry on the Deansgate side is the ever reliable and olde-worlde Briton’s Protection.

Britons Protection. Image Credit pinterest.com

The earliest inkling of the concept of the Bridgewater Hall was when repairs were being considered to the nearby Free Trade Hall in the 1950’s following wartime damage. The Free Trade was at that stage home to the city’s Halle Orchestra and hosted concerts, and I visited there just the once in the late 1980’s to see a fabulous gig by 10000 Maniacs.

It was decided that a singular bespoke venue was required, and a site was chosen where the former bus station and car park used to be located. Architects were carefully chosen with the acoustic integrity being high on the requirements list. Construction started on 22 March 1993 with an overall resultant cost of £42million including a £1.2million pipe organ with an astonishing 5500 pipes and at the time of build was the largest instrument to be installed in the UK for over a century.

They adopted unusual building techniques in that it was formed from solid reinforced concrete and is built on around three hundred earthquake proof springs, both initiatives improve the sound and the second one protects the acoustics from all outside noise and vibration. These concepts are beyond my small brain to comprehend but I do know that the resultant impacts are highly effective as I have encountered some of the finest sound quality there of any venue I have visited.  

Image Credit Bridgewater Hall

The first concert there was held on the 11th of September 1996 and was officially opened by the Queen. Within the Hall there are food options in the Charles Halle Restaurant and the Stalls Café Bar, and they also serve ice creams at the intervals sparking childhood memories of Pearl and Dean music in the ABC and Odeon in Preston!  The main auditorium seats 2341 people and has been designed to be tiered in such a way for all attendees to be as close as possible to the stage.

They have around 250 events a year, mainly of a classical inclination but they do also undertake a smaller selection of carefully considered traditional gigs, often where the band’s sound matches the aesthetic of the venue. A friend of mine recently saw the Sparks there, of which I was rather jealous!

My first visit there was in May 2011 when Mercury Rev decided to play in full their timeless ‘Deserter Songs’ album. We were seated up in the balcony trying manfully not to do ‘Waldorf and Statler’ impressions. They played the record in running order even including the wonky ‘Happy End (The Drunk Room)’ track and then we were treated to a few bonus songs on top. The sound literally soared in all directions including vertically upwards to our box and it was a fabulous gig.

Bridgewater Hall. Image Credit meetmeinmanchester.com

My other attendance in 2014 was naturally to see Mogwai and was the 25th time I had witnessed them, this time we were sat in some exceedingly comfy seats at ground level.  I was envious of my pal Dave Dyson as it was his Mogwai debut, and they performed a stellar set with ‘New Paths to Helicon Part 1’ and ‘We’re No Here’ included in their encore.