Tag: Mogwai

Manchester Venues 63 and 64

Located deep in the Northern Quarter there used to reside the Cord Bar. It was situated on Dorsey Street off Tib Street, almost directly behind the Gullivers public house. Apparently at the start of the millennium, it was one of the ‘go to’ places in NQ as it was cited as a favoured DJ venue and like many in this area of town was a visiting spot for an embryonic Elbow.

It suffered declining numbers over the years and a reboot attempt under the name of NYQ in 2018 was unsuccessful, however I visited its latest incarnation a couple of weeks ago prior to watching the Courettes at Night and Day. It is now called Alvarium with a restaurant called Lazy Tony’s Lasagneria where we had a table by the old stage!   

I visited there three times under the auspices of the Dot to Dot and Carefully Planned multi venue festivals and quite liked the establishment as it always reminded of an archetypal New York diner style bar you would see on the American cop shows. The bands played in the downstairs bar, and this could be accessed via a choice of stairs at the front or rear of the venue.

Cord Bar. Image Credit tripadvisor.co.uk

My first attendance on 19/10/14 was accessed from the latter steps and the acts played in an alcove where rather quaintly and somewhat niffily the space for the small number of punters was located outside the lavatories! The artist was a young local acoustic artist called John Ainsworth who released his debut album the following year.

When I landed there a year later, I discovered the stage was in the same place but was now thankfully facing the opposite way into a larger less pungent room. We saw Howie Reeve, who is a self-titled acoustic bass troubadour from the South of Glasgow. In May 2016, on my final visit I witnessed another local musician called Sam Frost. 

Nearby in the famous Afflecks Palace block there is a fine basement bar and live music venue. The club has had a couple of entrances, either from Oldham Street or Tib Street. It has also had a few name changes over the years, originally a singular 500 capacity music venue called Moho, then a hybrid site called Manchester Dive NQ. It is now called Dive Bar and Grill and is more focussed on being a food/sports bar and it appears that live music is now longer on the roster, and it is a late-night DJ location only.   

My first visit in April 2012 was in the Moho moniker era and we accessed the gig from the Tib Street entrance, and I thought the place had a decent layout.

Manchester Dive NQ. Image Credit venuescanner.com

Now, from the starting point of being a humongous Mogwai fan I have always searched out other like-minded bands positioned in the post-rock genre. However, a few of these have turned out to be in the Mogwai lite category, God is an Astronaut and I so I Watch from Afar spring to mind.

An exception to this was the band that night with the vaguely threatening but musically promising name of This Will Destroy You from Texas. They were an excellent live band, and it looks like the band are still operational and under their revised name of TWDY they are scheduled to play the ArcTangent festival later in 2022. It was also jointly my 150th different venue and my 150th gig in Manchester.  

After the change to Dive NQ where they moved the stage to the front of the venue, I attended four other times between 2016 and 2019. The first was to see a local blues-rock band called Turrentine Jones. The second was to see a young Sheffield band called Exhort, who were perhaps unsurprisingly heavily influenced by Arctic Monkeys. This was prior to attending a Julia Jacklin gig.  

On the penultimate visit whilst at the Dot-to-Dot festival we saw local act China Lane led by Reuben Hester who apparently after the band disbanded appeared on the reality TV programme Little Mix the Search. This was just before walking across the road to Night and Day to catch a young astounding Fontaines DC for the first time. My final attendance there was to see Saytr Play.       

Wickerman Festival 14

A degree of sadness pervades as I draft this week’s blog as it details the fourteenth and last ever Wickerman Festival to be held which took place on 24/25 July 2015. There were rumours for over a year around the future of the event, eventually resulting in the confirmation later in 2015 that Wickerman would be no more leaving a huge chasm in my annual gig calendar!

On the bill were the Waterboys, who I recall I first become aware of when they played the Tube on a Friday teatime on Channel 4, also playing were Squeeze whose set I enjoyed. Glasgow post punks Catholic Action and electronic synth band Ubre Blanca, bizarrely named after Fidel Castro’s favourite cow were also in residence, alongside Errors, Belle and the Beast, Beth Fourage, Be Charlotte, Wayne Devre Set, Sister Fox, Vaselines and the grungy Tuff Love.  

The punk contingent was covered by Amphetameanies and stalwarts Eddie and the Hot Rods with their timeless Top 10 hit ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do’, their only constant member being singer Barrie Masters, prior to his death in 2019. 

Cellist Calum Ingram headlined the Acoustic Tent and the reggae/ska corner had Jimmy Cliff with his ‘Many Rivers to Cross’. There was hip-hop from Hector Bizerk and main stage performances from Lulu, Stereo MC’s, the ever-impressive Neneh Cherry and Pere Ubu who I did once own one album by, namely ‘The Tenement Year’ however the only song I can recall is ‘George Had a Hat’.  

Neneh Cherry. Image Credit djdmac.com

Folk tones were ensured by Glasgow five-piece Washington Irving, John Bramwell, frontman from I Am Kloot, Chichester’s Tom Odell, Novantae! from Galloway and Rick Redbeard which was the solo performer stage name for Rick Anthony, lead singer for the Phantom Band.   

My notes also inform me that I saw SLUG who were promoting their debut album ‘Ripe’ though I cannot recall their performance. In the last two or three years they have received a lot more attention and received considerable radio airplay from the likes of Mark Reilly.

Aiden Moffett (of Arab Strap fame) and Bill Wells were also on the roster. We also headed over to the third stage to see the excellent Pains of Being Pure at Heart, who I was watching for the fifth and final time before their subsequent break up.

Many of my favourite Scottish bands had played this festival over the years including Teenage Fanclub, The View, The Proclaimers, Idlewild, Aerogramme and The Rezillos to name a few, however the cream of the crop Mogwai had never graced the festival.

This was partially rectified by Stuart Braithwaite, Mogwai main singer appearing for a solo set on the Acoustic stage which we obviously attended. I managed to have a brief photo shoot and chat with him and who knows if there had have been a following year perhaps Mogwai might have played, we shall never know! 

John Dewhurst, Uncle George, Stuart Braithwaite and me replete with dubious festival hat in the Acoustic Tent. Image Credit Mrs Braithwaite.

So, before we depart the South West Scotland amphitheatre permit me, if I may to take you on a final tour of the site. From the initial taxi/bus drop off point you would traverse through the tents to the wristband collection point then onto the main entrance which in reality was a hole in the wall.

Opposite the entrance you could purchase a stage times list before turning left past the funfair, circus or cinema, dependant on what they chosen to incorporate that particular year. Onwards past the Acoustic Tent, behind which in later years there was a craft beer and Mojito tent.

At the apex of the hill was the shop, Third Stage and Solus and Scooter Tents, of which the latter in the early years resembled a Mash Tent where they had stellar DJ’s playing. From here, you had a superb vantage to watch the Wickerman burning at midnight on the Saturday night. I seem to recall one year they had a little mini golf course next to the statue.  

Traversing down the hill rolled you past the VIP area and main beer tent, where occasionally bash em up bands would play. In the natural bowl was the main stage followed by the Dance and Silent Disco Tent. Just in advance of fully circling back to the main entrance you would find the fabulous Reggae Tent which was always erected on an incline. This tent was a regular final stopping point of the evening where you could purchase a hot mug of tea and a flapjack whilst being dually soothed by the Bob Marley inspired soundtrack and stoned by the pungent aroma permeating all around.     

A couple of years later, when in attendance at another Scottish festival, one of the gig brethren said the festival was good, but it is not Wickerman and we all murmured in assent, I can think of no more fitting epitaph than that!