Tag: Mogwai

Lancaster Venues 32 to 34

This week I am returning to the 2025 Lancaster Live Festival. The next place we arrived at was Lancaster Greens on North Road. It has had previous lives as a railway station, motor car showroom, Spavin and Kelly sports and toy store and more latterly the Green Ayre Wetherspoons hostelry. The Green Ayre opened in 2001 and was subsequently flooded by Storm Desmond in 2017.

In 2020 it was converted into its current function as a large sports bar and the owner Keiran McNamara expanded his empire by revamping the unit next door from former DW Sports into a 11-table pool hall. They apparently also have the infernal karaoke on their pub roster.

Greens. Image Credit lancs.live

On our visit there was a band called Mikey T’s Small Town Playboys playing in the centre area of the bar. They hail from the Fylde coast and are also informally known as the Galleonaires, this title deriving from their regular appearances at the renowned blues and funk establishment, the Galleon Bar in Blackpool.  They also perform regularly around the local venues in Lytham and Cleveleys.

We then headed on towards the outermost location of the festival Lancaster Gregson Centre (previously Gregson Institute)which is a five minute walk down Moor Lane beyond Dukes cinema. My pal John Dewhurst inadvertently first discovered this venue when he was overnight parking his car prior to the lads Christmas night out one year.  

The institute was founded in 1889 (coincidentally the year when my team Preston North End became the original Invincibles) as a memorial to Henry Gregson. The Gregson family were the co-founders of the Natural History Museum and are purported to have created the word ‘dinosaur’.

In the early 20th century, it had a church and then a school attached before being bought in 1984 by a charity that now go under the name of Gregson Community Association. It sailed very close to the bankruptcy window in 1990 and also during the covid period, but both times thankfully survived and is now open 11am to 11pm seven days a week.

The volunteers outside Gregson Centre. Image Credit gregson.co.uk

Some considerable fundraising has taken place serving to improve the building and its facilities. They also have several affiliated charity groups that have undertaken activities to restore previously disused local sites such as recreation grounds and gardens, and they also run a cricket club.    

It is now a multi-functional arts and community venue and within their walls there is a café-bar, function room, music venue and a small cinema that is available for hire. I have always had thoughts of hiring the cinema for a small group and maybe showing something like the Mogwai soundtracked ‘Zidane’ but that still currently remains on my ‘to-do list’!  

I had previously visited several times for drinks and once for a hearty roast dinner, but I have never seen live music there. However, an archive check informs that over the years they have had periodic gigs including John Peel faves Bogshed, John Etheridge, Dutch act Guns of Navarone and of course The Wedding Present.

On our visit we consumed a fine beer in the bar before attending the cinema room where the shows were taking place with the Saturday listing being badged as Queer Night, in comparison to the other two been referenced as Band and Jazz Fusion nights respectively. On stage were a local noisy punk two-piece called Murky Buckets who lived up to their byline by playing music that your grandma would describe as a ‘bloody racket’.    

Murky Buckets. Image Credit facebook.com

Outside the plethora of venues that were directly listed in the festival programme, were a few additional fringe events. One such occurrence was at the Lancaster Reform Club on Great John Street. It was originally opened in 1873 and was modelled on the same named venue in Pall Mall in London. The latter establishment was devised on the back of the Great Reform Act in 1832 and was a haven for Radicals and Whigs of their time and evolved into the initial political headquarters of the Liberal Party.

The Lancaster version remains a grand old building, and they had named themselves the Craic Inn for the day and we saw a Scottish lass called Rhuari Campbell performing. I had seen her at a previous edition of the festival playing at Lancaster Storey Gardens.

Manchester Venues 206 to 208

Affleck’s Palace (now simply Affleck’s) is indelibly ingrained into Manchester culture. It first opened in 1982 with the utterly commendable ethos of providing low cost rentals and valuable week by week licences to support local entrepreneurs to take their first precarious steps into business ownership. Affleck’s is embedded in the Northern Quarter and has a unique maze like design set over several floors.

It evolved into a haven for alternative culture and survived two fires and had a golden period in the 1990’s ‘Madchester’ period where you could purchase your latest set of baggy flared jeans for Happy Monday gigs! It nearly closed in 2008, but it is now thriving again and remains busy to this day with all 73 units occupied but has perhaps now fallen into the touristy price trap. I once also had the novelty of watching a noisy garage rock band called Bright Young People in a coffee shop on the top floor as part of the 2016 Dot to Dot festival.

Afflecks Palace. Image Credit hotels.com

In the mid-19th century, a drapery business opened on Oldham Street called Affleck & Brown and was so successful it grew into a full department store and was dubbed ‘the Harrods of the North’. It suffered a downturn in the 1950’s and was bought out by Debenhams before finally closing in 1973. Hilary Mantel, the author of the Wolf Hall trilogy drafted a short story ‘The Third Rising’ which was based on a mother and daughter who were employed at the store.

In 2015, a bar naturally called Manchester Affleck & Brown was opened on Hilton Street in the Smithfield building and located on the original site. I am not a regular visitor but when passing at one point last year, I could hear live tuneage so obviously had to go ‘beyond the threshold’ as Husker Du once stated. Upon entry I discovered they had a little acoustic stage right next to the door and a chap called Johnny was performing.   

In 1989, the Dry Bar nightclub opened and was located next to Night and Day on Oldham Street. The owners were Factory Records and Tony Wilson placed it under the auspices of the Project name FAC 201, and it was a smaller sister to their other most renowned establishment, the Hacienda.

Affleck & Brown. Image Credit useyourlocal.com

The surrounding area was a tad disreputable at that stage but the two door to door venues resulted in sparking the regeneration of the suburb. During its lifetime, it famously barred two lesser known musicians called Shaun Ryder and Liam Gallagher. I recall decamping there in a huff after we had got stung by missing the first portion of an astonishingly early set from Mogwai at nearby Planet K in 2001.   

In 2017, it was sold with planning permission for a boutique hotel which never happened. Then in March 2025, after an eight-year fallow period it morphed into Manchester New Freemount. I have inserted the ‘new’ to distinguish it from the other Freemount branches that exist further down Oldham Street. It contains all the traditional hallmarks of the brand with a large inviting space, open brick interiors and a bonny old fashioned wood panelled bar. They have live music 7 nights a week followed by DJs at the weekends.

After having an excellent meal at the Home Chinese restaurant for Gill’s birthday we gravitated over to the new bar for a couple of drinks. We grabbed some seats and whilst we were in attendance we saw sets from two local musicians, Steph and Gordon. It transpired the timing of our visit was apposite as it got very busy as the evening progressed, even though it was a Sunday and there are regularly queues out of the door on other evenings.  

Nearby Manchester Stevenson Square dates originally back to the 18th century and at that stage it was a waste land with numerous daub holes, which are apparently boggy clay pits. In the latter half of the 19th century, it was hugely popular for open air speakers with its high point being in 1877 when 50,000 people gathered to celebrate the opening of the Town Hall.

Stevenson Square. Image Credit manchesterwire.co.uk

The residential properties surrounding the square were converted to busy commercial units, but that period ended when the city’s main shopping area moved to reside around the new Arndale Centre, which was opened in 1975.  

Nowadays the area contains a plethora of bars and food outlets, many with pedestrianised outdoor al fresco spaces. One night last year I was traversing through there and this is the only time I have witnessed it, but a pop up stage had been erected in one corner and a lass called Vancouver Val was performing.