Tag: Metallica

Preston Venue 60 The Ferret – Part 4

The stage in the Preston Ferret is immediately to your right as you enter the building prior to accessing the bar. There are stairs taking you upstairs to the loos and there is a standing capacity of around 200 and you normally have an excellent unrestricted view of the bands from wherever you positioned, even when it is packed. The stage was originally placed to the left before being moved and my personal preference was its first positioning as it felt to me to be a more aesthetically pleasing lay out as it was further from the entrance door, but that is just my humble opinion.

The current stage position. Image Credit blogpreston.co.uk

In June 2015 after a long emotional day at my Uncle Danny’s funeral we sought some musical solace and the first act was a terrific post rock band from Guadalajara called Polar Dream, a lazy journalistic term could be to quantify them as a ‘Mexican Mogwai’, though they additionally incorporate drone, Latin, Indian and Turkish shades into their mix.  The South American theme continued with the intriguing atmospheric guitar shades of Fauno, a forward-thinking band who were a key influencer in the music scene in Brazil.

My final gig visit of 2015 was to see Bobbie Peru again with the other band being Pete Bentham and The Dinner Ladies. The latter are an art punk ‘Kitchencore’ combo with the Dinnerettes (Peggy Bread and Patti Cakes) in their ranks and idiosyncratic song titles such as Sensitive Lorry Drivers, Rude Statues and Goth Postmen. In February 2016 I caught a band called Young Recreation.

Polar Dream. Image Credit gigseekr.com

A couple of months later, I saw Flight of Arrows who are a four piece whose members are split between Preston and Sheffield. They had performed at Kendal Calling and bagged support spots with the Strypes and 1975.

The headline act was Vyrll Society from Liverpool who formed in 2013 and were originally named Dirty Rivers. They were highly touted but from a personal viewpoint they left me a bit cold. A couple of years later they released their anticipated debut album ‘Course of the Satellite’ containing the single ‘Andrei Rublev’ in a cultural nod to the famous Russian painter and not the tennis player with an almost identical name! That coincided with headlining a UK tour culminating in a sold-out hometown gig. It came as a surprise then that shortly after the front man Michael Ellis called it quits citing the old chestnut of ‘creative differences’, it is unclear whether the band is still operational.

Vyrll Society. Image Credit dansendeberen.be

 In June 2016 my next appearance featured the band Jordan Allen, who started out as a solo artist. They had an Arctic Monkeys feel about them and a couple of years later they had the privilege of playing at the historic St Johns Minster in the city alongside the Sherlocks.

Later that year I witnessed a rather good math rock outfit called Chiyoda Ku. The band members initially met at the age of 16 at the Academy of Music and Sound in Exeter and honed their live craft at the Stag and Hounds in Bristol. The venue actively encouraged and provided a platform for the more musically obtuse bands, possibly due to its proximity to the ArcTanGent festival site at Fernhill Farm on the outskirts of the city. My next appearance was three months later where I saw local artists Notes and Donnie Williams.

My forty second and as it stands currently my latest visit was in August 2017, a month before we relocated to Manchester. Appropriately it was a full bill and commenced with The Kut (known as Princess Maha) who is a gritty London based multi-instrumentalist. Her musical career commenced in 2005 and she had a very gradual rise through the ranks starting with appearances at the London Olympic and Paralympic games in 2012.

In November 2020 she had a speculative shot for a Christmas No 1 single with ‘Waiting for Christmas’ in aid of Red Cross, where she eventually reached No 10. The success continued with her second album GRIT which achieved a No 1 position in the Official UK Rock Album chart. 

Next up was Black Mamba, a heavy metal band based in the city. They were followed by Blackpool band Sin Circus, spearheaded by singer Vicky Spencer who subsequently released their debut album VII during the pandemic all based around the theme of the Seven Deadly Sins. The headline act was another local rock combo called Twisted Obsession who were in the Metallica mould.

So, this completes my review of the 60 Preston venues I have visited thus far, until I find some new ones to frequent!

Gigs from Abroad Part 13 – Vietnam Part 1

I have been fortunate in my lifetime to undertake two long haul trips, the first to Australia in 2007 and then subsequently to Vietnam over Christmas and New Year in 2014/15. We flew via Doha in Qatar and firstly had a 4 day sojourn to Singapore. We had previously visited with a quick stopover on the Oz trip but wanted a longer timespan to investigate the city more fully.

I have a fondness for Singapore as it is a very commutable city and has plenty of distractions. It also has some very fine food with the Hainanese Chicken Rice from one of the stalls on Chinatown Food Street being heaven on a plate, but with the Singapore Tea being right at the other end of the preference spectrum.  

Singapore skyline. Image Credit wallpaperup.com

We then flew onto Ho Chi Min (previously Saigon). Now where I do I start with this remarkable city, maybe let’s go right back to the taxi ride from the airport to our hotel where you receive your first sight and sounds of the busiest traffic I have ever witnessed, though remarkably I did not once witness any crashes or fist waving from the road users.

Crossing the road is a science in itself with in some places no natural crossing point. Thus, we navigated across and then returned over a four lane highway by the dubious process of copying the locals and just stepping out and waiting for cars and coaches to stop, which was in equal parts both scary and exhilarating and was nothing like the Green Cross Code!  

There were scooters everywhere, even on the pavement! They were multi-purpose modes of transport as we saw at different times on individual scooters a family of four, a tree trunk and even a fridge freezer!  In a novel concept the shops in particular streets are allocated to certain trades, so for example you would have a book street or an electrical goods street, makes it easy I guess to know where to head if you need a new washing machine!    

Quiet street in Ho Chi Minh. Image Credit blogspot.com

Vietnam’s past is well documented, so I won’t repeat here. The locals I encountered encouraged us to explore their history, but they were strictly eyes face forward regarding the future. In that respect, we attended the Independence Palace which was the site of the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and also visited the remarkable Chi-Chi tunnels. 

The musical background and heritage of Vietnam is a veritable melting pot. It was initially interlinked with religious festivals and utilised devices such as flutes, harps and zithers. There was also royal court music called Nha nhac which incorporated an instrument called the Cham drum. There is always in South Asian culture the influence of colours, and this is reflected in the names of Red and Yellow music, the former the layman’s name for revolutionary music conceived during the French colonial period.

There are more recent western influences in the conception of the polished V-pop genre resulting in many previous underground artists receiving international acclaim. This has also contributed to the huge upturn of interest in hip-hop and resultant game shows.

One direct musical influence that remained after the Vietnam War was an increasing popularity of rock and heavy metal, due to American music being introduced to the country. One modern band from Ho Chi Min who owe a debt to this are Microwave, so intriguingly named I had to have a listen to them, and they sound as if they have been influenced by Metallica. 

Microwave band. Image Credit youtube,com