Tag: Mimi Parker

Manchester Venue 129 – Cathedral

In 1215, Manchester Cathedral was built in the centre of the city with additions to the original design being built at periodic intervals over the next three centuries. It survived damage in the Civil War, the IRA bombing in 1996 and the Second World War, the latter causing extensive destruction that required a further 20 years to restore. Following the Arena bombing in May 2017 the Glade of Light memorial was built outside to commemorate the victims. The church is currently one of the fifteen Grade I listed buildings in Manchester and is situated behind the famous Sinclair’s Oyster Bar.

Manchester Cathedral. Image Credit hoteles.com

In the last 15 years the Cathedral has branched out and begun to showcase live music. My first attendance there was in 2012 where I encountered my pal Rick Clegg and his daughter Charlotte on the train over as they were heading on to an alternate Vaccines gig at Manchester Ritz. We parlayed in the pub over a couple of scoops and then headed separate ways.

A couple of years earlier I had attended my debut ecclesiastical event at St Phillips Church in Salford when watching Wooden Shjips. This was a similar set up with slightly more challenges in regard to viewing the stage due to the proliferation of pillars.

The band performing was Dirty Three, an Australian instrumental rock band I had seen once previously 12 years earlier. Their first ever gig took place on ANZAC Day on 25th April 1992 where Warren Ellis utilised a guitar pick up to his violin which created their trademark feedback driven sound which is a sight to behold when they are in their full flow of 10 minute opuses.

Dirty Three. Image Credit fromthearchives.com

Warren was born in Ballarat, Victoria, coincidentally a town Gill and I stayed in when we visited Australia, and he has also been a dual member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since 1994.  They are a terrific and thunderous live act, and on the night, the journalist/musician John Robb was also in attendance, with whom I had a decent chat.  

The second and currently latest visit was as part of the Manchester Dot to Dot festival in 2016. As ever, my gig ‘addiction’ resulted in a co-ordinated effort to attend all of the twenty geographically disparate city centre venues during the day, which was a logistical challenge.

Never one who has been able to embrace Gordon Gekko’s ethos of ‘lunch is for wimps’; a food stop was taken at the excellent chippy that used to be located at the city end of Oldham Street. This was immediately prior to heading over to the Cathedral, which for the record was number eleven on the venue hit list. The fish and chips were still being munched as I stood outside, and I could hear the band ending their set.

My instant thoughts were that I had made a major tactical error, and this would forever be classed as a ‘missed gig’, but I wandered in any way to pray for a miracle! Due to the nature of the event, there was very strict time periods allocated to each set, but remarkably in this case the gig gods were smiled benignly on me as the band returned to the stage for an unprecedented encore of one additional song.

The act on stage was Sundara Karma, who are an indie band from Reading. I had caught them very early in their career as they had only formed the previous year and were just at that stage leaving secondary school and it was five years prior to releasing their debut album ‘Youth is Only Ever Fun in Retrospect’. They were obviously acquiring some hype as they incited a very enthusiastic crowd reaction. With the near miss thus averted I progressed on to achieve the full twenty venues, ending the gig quest in Manchester Texture in the Northern Quarter.  

Sundara Karma. Image Credit schonmagazine.com

Gill and I had tickets for one other event there which was to see Low in April 2022 however we ended up being double booked so therefore could not attend. This was seven months before Mimi Parker’s tragic untimely death leaving me with memories of previous great Low shows I had been fortunate to witness, particularly at Manchester Hop and Grape and Lancaster Library.

Other British Gigs 3 and 4

I managed to catch Mogwai three times in the 2006 calendar year as I saw them in Edinburgh and London. The third strand of that trilogy was the last date of a short British tour which took place at Sheffield Plug on 07/04/06. My attendance of the event was in doubt until the last minute as I was a tad under the weather, but generally nothing would stand in my way of attending Mogwai gigs!

Thus, a train was boarded by Uncle George and I on the Friday afternoon via Manchester into Sheffield. John Dewhurst was not in attendance as the birth of his son Joe was imminent, frighteningly Joe is now aged 16 and just about to commence his first apprenticeship.

It was my virgin trip into the steel city, and I have always aspired one day to attend the World Snooker at the Crucible Theatre. Linked to that, I have a pal called Dave Dyson whose one of his claims to fame is that he was in attendance in 1983 when Cliff Thorburn famously made the first televised 147 break at the World Championships.

We had a quick foray into the bookies as it was Ladies Day at the Grand National meeting and we found a 33-1 winner which set us up in good stead for the day. We had a mulch around a couple of pubs before heading over to the venue located on 14-16 Matilda Street.

The club first opened in 2005 and modelled itself as a live music and club night venue opening to 6am at the weekends. Local luminaries Arctic Monkeys and the Prodigy have played there. It was also an award winner in the Club Bar None Awards in 2014.

The venue subsequently closed just before the pandemic struck. However, there are green shoots of recovery evident as the record shop Record Junkee, which sits opposite, are planning to reopen the establishment under the name Network and reinstate gigs and club nights there.  There are also plans for a bowling alley, drinking and dining area to be located in the original Plug car park.

The Sheffield Plug. Image Credit sheffieldhistory.co.uk

I recall the venue being down in the basement and it contained a very low roof in the style of the old International 1 in Manchester. As a result, it was the loudest Mogwai performance I have ever witnessed, and they do set a very high bar in that regard. There were literally people with hands over their ears at certain points during the set.     

The bands choice of the last three tracks contributed to this cacophony, being namely ‘2 Rights Make 1 Wrong’, We’re No Here’ and ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’.  We spent the return journey on the Saturday, trying without success to identify the winner of the National that afternoon.

On one weekend when I was visiting my brother in Nottingham in July 2008, he mentioned there was a festival that a friend’s band was participating in on the Sunday. So, I agreed to provide a lift there for him as it was on my route of travelling back to Preston.

The event was the Belper Music Festival though I can find scant details when I searched, so I don’t know whether it was only in existence for a short period of time. It took place on the narrow streets of the town and as it encompassed a bonus new venue I obviously had to stick around and watch a couple of acts! Thus, on a small stage on the main drag I saw two local bands, namely Moscow Straits and the Re-enactments.

Two postscripts from me if I may, I have just heard the brutally sad news of Mimi Parker of Low’s untimely death from evil ovarian cancer. I shall always the treasure the few times I saw them live and the heavenly harmonies they created. We shall always have ‘Just Like Christmas’, which is our Christmas present opening song on Christmas morning.

Mimi Parker of Low. Image Credit www.acclaimedmusic.net

The other element is that I have finally reached 100k words in my blog, a future book at some stage methinks. What was the profound 100,000th word I hear you say? Could it be ‘the’ or ‘but’? Well, it actually somewhat appropriately turned out to be ‘Manchester’!