Mogwai – Page 27 – jimmysgigapedia.com

Manchester Venues 14 to 15

Halfway down Oldham Street was located Manchester Planet K which I attended twice. The first visit in October 99 was to see Snuff supported by Mad Caddies.

Me and Uncle George were on duty that night and discovered whilst talking to John Dewhurst a week before that he was going to see Godspeed you Black Emperor at the Roadhouse the same night. So, we headed over together for drinks and tea before John headed off to his destination.

Planet K was a reasonable little venue, with about a 300 capacity with the stage at the bottom of the room.

Snuff were as ever good value and the place was half full at the most. They finished the set with a rousing rendition of the Match of the Day theme. John enjoyed his gig also as he described they had some epic length songs in the best post-rock tradition. We parlayed in Yates on Princes Street before heading off for the late train.

(c) — Planet K venue. Image Credit tinamcclelland@manchestermusic.co.uk

My second and final visit was to see Mogwai on 18/04/01. Usual crew of George, John and I in tow. It wasn’t the greatest night as Mogwai unexpectedly came on exceptionally early whilst we were still encamped in the pub and we missed the first twenty minutes.

They had finished their set prior to 10pm and there were also some annoying punters in there. My least enjoyable Mogwai show but still of a decent level. The venue closed a year or so later.

I had always endeavoured to avoid the cavernous locations as I have a ready preference for the ‘one man and his dog’ venues but the opportunity to see AC/DC for the first time was too good to miss. So, in December 2000 we headed over to Manchester Arena. The Arena is located next to and linked to Victoria train station with a 21k capacity.

The morning was spent de grouting the shower prior to going out and having some fun. We decamped at Salford Crescent train station and visited the Crescent and Pint Pot prior to meeting other attendees in the Oyster Bar in town. Here I met the current Brighton correspondent Nigel Wiskar (rechristened School of Rock) for the first time.

We had standing tickets in the pit and AC/DC were fabulous and standout tracks were ‘Hells Bells’ and ‘Whole Lot of Rosie’. They adopt a simple premise of playing 12 bar blues at high volume, but they are the absolute masters of it. A top night was had by all.

It was over 17 years later to my next attendance. By that stage we were living in a rented house on an astonishingly noisy Kingsway in East Didsbury.

My mate Rick Clegg has always been a huge Paul Weller fan, so I agreed to be his wingman and provided the lodgings due to our new Manchester postcode. The gig was on 01/03/18 and in the middle of the Beast of the East and was as a result a bracingly cold evening.

The place was still being rebuilt from the bombing and was as best half full. The gig washed over me to be honest and there had been a published set list including encores in advance of the gig which I find a tad disconcerting. Rick enjoyed it though so mission accomplished.

I also once waited at the foot of those huge steps to provide a lift home for Gill and her three sisters after they had been to see Kylie Minogue.

My last attendance was earlier this year (16/01/20) with George, Tony and Pam Dewhurst to see Slipknot supported by Behemoth.

See the source image — Slipknot promo pic. Image credit you tube

We were up in the gods this time and it was a country mile for a loo visit or to purchase an extortionate beer.

They had huge stage effects with the ever-present masks, gantries, dual aerial drummers and even a treadmill. They are definitely an interesting live act, though verge on the edge of pantomime at times!

I am going to change tack in my next blog and provide five ‘lost’ albums that in my view did not receive their due attention. I would be interested in your lists so comments welcome next week.

West Midlands Gigs

I have done a total of 5 gigs which I have loosely badged as ‘Midland Gigs’ and by taking into account some geographic liberties I have further quantified these into West and East. Outside of these, there are numerous others I have attended in Nottingham which I will cover in future articles.

Concentrating initially on the West gigs, the first one was Mogwai at Wolverhampton Wulfren Hall on 03/11/01. The virtually ever present Mogwai fan club of Uncle George, John and I drove over on a Saturday afternoon landing at a Premier Inn on the outskirts of Wolverhampton.

A taxi into town was followed by a sally around a few hostelries involving a bit of Jeff Stelling informing us slightly annoyingly (because we weren’t in attendance) that North End had won 6-0 against Stockport including a David Healy hat trick.

The venue in the centre of town is badged as Civic Hall with two venues contained within. The bigger venue (Civic Hall) has a capacity of 3000 and the smaller Wulfrun Hall we were attending with a capacity of 1134. There is also a linked sister venue Slade Rooms (cap 550) across town.

I recall it being a fairly traditional venue about two thirds full and Mogwai sounded good. After the gig we found a ‘Raiders’ like music pub that I cannot recall the name of near the venue and proceeded to imbibe too much Becks as fine tune followed fine tune.

We had spotted a sophisticated looking Indian restaurant earlier in the evening which we proceeded to topple into, it was fabulous food, but rather expensive and somewhat wasted on us in our inebriated state. Back at the Premier Inn, John for some reason had booked a family room so we had to smuggle him in, and he slept in the cot bed, whilst me and George had the double!

My only other visits to Wolverhampton since this gig have been via the train station travelling onwards with work to the thriving metropolis of Telford.

On 14/09/16 we headed over to Coventry, birthplace of our South Manchester pals Marcus and Tris, to see Mogwai. Me and George travelled down on the train and when heading back from a comfort break late in the journey, I realised that the entire Mogwai band were sat at the end of our carriage.

This made geographical sense as the train starting point had been Glasgow Central. After a double take and brief consideration of extolling them in fanboy style with a glowing testimonial I said nowt and heading back to my seat and then said ‘you’ll never guess what….

I did have a brief parlay as we departed the train but especially loved the fact that the whole carriage was oblivious to the musical greatness sat in their midst.

We met John who had driven down and grabbed some tea in the Earl of Mercia Wetherspoons in the centre. Mogwai were playing the soundtrack to a nuclear age documentary titled Atomic – Living in Dread and Promise at Coventry Cathedral. The documentary was penned by a Coventry born Mark Cousins. So, for that reason and the Cathedral’s history of being blitzed during the war, it was a perfect location.

It was an impressive venue and they had poignantly turned the seats around to ensure the ruins were the backdrop to the dark subject matter displayed on the screens and that allied alongside the eerie soundtrack made it an intense experience.

https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/review-poignant-seamless-mogwai-coventry-11890776

A loo visit was a trek and a half as they were located way out the back of the basilica and down deep into the crypt.

After, we headed back into town and could hear the unmistakeable sound of a band playing which naturally had to be investigated resulting in catching the tail end of a Terraboula Liar set in Coventry Drapers. They most definitely fell into the ‘After the Lord Mayors show’ category!

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