Tag: Mogwai

Glasgow Venues 6 to 7

In August 2014 I made another trip up the scenic West Coastline to Glasgow to see Mogwai with the usual ‘Mog trio’ of Uncle George, John Dewhurst and I in tow. It was a late arranged sojourn, so I had secured some slightly unusual accommodation as I recall it was linked to a church and located somewhere near Bath Street.

We fancied heading to a couple of different places on this trip but naturally prior to that it had to be music part 1 first, thus our initial port of call was Glasgow 13th Note Cafe. This bar was originally a pub on Glassford Street before moving to its current home on King Street in Merchant City in 1997, the original site has now become Bar Bacchus. The franchise subsequently then hoovered up a bigger club venue on Clyde Street and the 13th Note was then taken over by the Barfly group in 2002.  

13th Note Cafe. Image Credit wee-dundee.co.uk

Many of the local bands of the time, namely Bis and Urusei Yatsura played there, and it was famously the location of one of Mogwai’s very early gigs as detailed in Stuart Braithwaite’s engaging autobiography ‘Spaceships over Glasgow’ which I have recently consumed.  The chap who booked the bands was Alex Huntley who latterly changed his name to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand fame, many of the gigs in the early days were free of charge.

The ground floor is a bar and a thriving vegan café, and the basement room is the music venue with gigs virtually every night. I had heard the local act The Vex were undertaking a Saturday afternoon residence so down we headed into the sweat box. They were a punk/new wave band and playing an epic 2 hour set which in our 30-minute portion we caught an excellent cover version of Cure’s ‘The Forest’, one of my fave tracks of theirs. 

We jumped on the subway at St Enoch’s station for a foray out to the West End of Glasgow where after a sally around the Botanical Gardens we visited the very grand building of Oran Mor for a beer, I have never yet managed to attend a gig there in the music room located upstairs. We then visited the ‘Harry Potter’ style street of Ashton Lane before undertaking the return journey and randomly jumping off at Bridge Street station.

Glasgow Oran Mor. Image Credit Pinterest.

We decamped into the Lauriestown Bar by the river, the Mogwai gig was taking place at Glasgow Richmond Park but when we asked for directions in the pub, we drew blank expressions from the resident punters. We decided to obtain a taxi number and our transport duly arrived. The taxi driver was also lacking in local knowledge and more intent on imparting his current employment woes on us, but we persuaded him to ‘do his job’ and we finally found the park about ten minutes before the show started!

Laurieston Bar. Image Credit tripadvisor.ca

Richmond Park was opened in 1899 and is a huge location of 12 hectares in size, and it appears the area is closed for major investment works at the moment as part of a regeneration programme. The event was part of a two-day shindig called the East End Social Last Big Weekend.

There was a partial marquee where Mogwai took the stage and apologised for drinks availability during the earlier sets, though they stated it had been beyond their control. They were as enjoyable as ever and post gig due to a dearth of taxis we undertook the long walk via Glasgow Green back up to Sauchiehall Street where we ended the evening with ‘one for the ditch’! 

Manchester Venues 87 to 88 Albert Hall – Part 3

Now I could be wrong here, but my impression is that the early shows immediately post- pandemic appeared to have less tickets on sale as for a spell there was more room to breathe, even at sold out shows. Then, the sold-out events seemed to become much busier and for me this is one of the flaws in Manchester Albert Hall’s arsenal as at some of their gigs there you literally cannot move. A case in point was a Mogwai date this year where I was pinned in a spot by the bar (though there are worse places to be!) which didn’t allow you to adjust your position or viewpoint even if you wanted to.   

My next gig at the venue was to see Car Seat Headrest in November 2018. I have always been a huge fan of this band ever since I first heard the track ‘Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales’, the song is derived from the 2016 ‘Teens of Denial’ album. That album ticks so many musical boxes from me and I would rate is as highly as being one of my Top 10 albums.  

Car Seat Headrest. Image Credit Billboard.

The driving force behind the band is Will Toledo who as a solo member self-released an astonishing 12 records between 2010 and 2014 before becoming a fully-fledged band the following year. In my view their music is so thoughtful and heartfelt but beautifully wrapped up in a crunchy garage rock sound which I have an inherent weakness for. The lo-fi lyrics talk specifically and empathise with the waifs and strays, lonely and dispossessed bedroom warriors of the world and the audience that night reflected that cross-section of the population, and I thoroughly enjoyed their show and the resulting exultant sing along!

As part of the Dot-to-Dot festival in 2018, I saw Dream Wife, a three-piece pop punk band from Brighton. I saw so many bands that day, and I cannot recall a note of whatever portion of their set I witnessed, but they do appear to have received a fair degree of critical acclaim since then.

July 19 resulted in seeing two reforming 90’s bands but neither hit the heights for me. The first being the Anglo-French combo Stereolab, who came across as a tad self-indulgent. The second was the Glaswegian lo-fi popsters Belle and Sebastian whose ongoing driving force has been Stuart Murdoch. They formed in 1996 and have produced twelve studio albums. Their previous members have included Isobel Campbell who collaborated on a couple of excellent albums with the late great Mark Lanegan.    

Their jaunty single ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’ was featured on the soundtrack of the ‘Juno’ movie and the C4 series ‘Teachers’ featuring a young Andrew Lincoln. In my opinion though, Andrew’s defining role remains the character Egg in the fantastic ground-breaking BBC 2 series ‘This Life’. Despite a couple of decent moments, the band were too twee for me.

In February 2020 I saw the Texan post-rock band Explosions in the Sky where it was patently clear when we were out and about that the dark clouds of Covid where beginning to form. In November 21 the old troubadours Jesus and Mary Chain were back on tour, and I was seeing them for the eighth time in total and for the first time in seven years. They played their excellent second album ‘Darklands’ in full and following an intermission played some further tunes. They sounded in very fine form and Jamie looked well though William looked a little weather worn and was seated throughout the performance.      

Jesus and Mary Chain. Image Credit exclaim!

In April 2022, I saw Sea Power (now without the British in their name) for the sixth time and later that year witnessed Mountain Goats. The latter band being from California and their constant member is John Darnielle, and for many years he operated as the solo member. Their name was derived from a line in a Screamin’ Jay Hawkins song, and they were firmly in the folk-rock vein and there were some die-hard fans in attendance.

My most current gig there was a couple of months ago to watch Eels who provided a soothing performance led by the distinctive vocals and quirky presence of Mark Oliver Everett (stage name E). They were supported on the night by the French soul rock band Inspector Cluzo.    

One postscript before I go, when leaving the hall during Dot-to-Dot festival in 2018 there was a Manchester Albert Hall Beer Van situated right outside the venue. There was an impromptu gig taking place in the open van by some accomplished musicians called the Road Crew, it was an enjoyable interlude before walking on to the next venue!