Tag: Preston Blitz

Preston Venue 42 – The Venue

Situated near to the Bus Station on Lords Walk there is a Preston pub with a long history and many owners. In the 1960’s and 1970’s it was named Moonraker’s and was a firmly established music venue, details on the musical content in this era are a tad sketchy but local legends Dennis Delight and various punk bands are referenced as having played there.

For the 1980’s kids out there you may recognise it when its moniker was the Amsterdam Bar before then changing its name to the Blue Moon. As you entered the pub from the entrance there was a reasonable size tap room and a door to the right transported you into the large main room. It was the first pub Gill and I ever had a drink in on our first date back in January 1988.  

The pub in its current Blitz phase. Image Credit Ents24.

I was a decent pool player in my youth briefly playing for the Joplins pub team, and for many years in the Blue Moon tap room there were a couple of pool tables and I recall one Friday night in there going a personal best ‘winner stay on’ ten games undefeated.  

The name changed again to the Town End bar creating an affinity and linkage to the local Preston North End football team. It then became Pachas which was designed as a ‘fun pub’ under the tutelage of Colin Durnan, who previously ran the infamous Hollywood Bar on Deepdale Road.

In 2004, John Bates, the owner of 12 Bar on Church St took over and reinstated it as a live music hub  again and it then passed over by the owner of the Mill who renamed it the Venue. It then morphed into a club called Beats of Rage. At that current point in time there was a huge game changing Tithebarn development planned across that area of Preston, threatening impending closure so it was cleverly renamed Coda, representing the final bars of a song and they became a successful dance club with a renowned club title Mixmag. Somewhat unsurprisingly the Tithebarn scheme never reached fruition.

A complete change in direction ensued in 2010 when the renowned Frog and Bucket comedy club became ensconced there and the likes of John Bishop and Terry Christian graced the stage. Sarah Millican used to utilise the club to test run her brand-new material.

It then finally became its latest incarnation by reverting back its musical roots under the name of Blitz. Now, somewhat confusingly I did cover in an earlier blog my attendance at the other venue in Preston which for a short period was also called Blitz which in 2013 was in the old Gatsby nightclub building on Great Shaw Street.  

This particular blog though is concerned with the Lords Walk Blitz site where they have been closely linked to Action Records and have had pre tour or promo performances from the likes of Fontaines DC and Snow Patrol.

My one attendance there was on 14/07/06 when it was called Preston The Venue. It was a Battle of the Bands event and the first act we witnessed was Jelly’s Last Jam, who formed in 2005 from the ashes of a previous band called Frencheryk. The bassist Martin Clarke was co-managing the Mitre Tavern pub down on North Road, and two of the band members were also residing there so many of their early rehearsals took place in that boozer. The pub itself has long since closed and is now a business called Vets and Pets.  

The Mitre Tavern. Image Credit Lancashire Evening Post.

The other band we saw were called Green Room who are a three-piece from Preston who also formed in 2005. Their first ever gig was held at the Adelphi venue in Preston, and they were a female fronted act who sat in the trip-hop genre, not dissimilar to Portishead and Massive Attack.       

Preston Venues 35 and 36

At the bottom end of Friargate you would find the Sun Hotel. On the opposite corner from the Sun, back in the day there was a bakery that used to sell the odd combination of a Cheese and Beetroot sandwich, which remarkably worked but I haven’t sampled that grouping for a while. Now, whilst I am thinking about it, where did I put those cocktail beetroots and Cathedral City…!

Next to the pub you can take a turning into Great Shaw St which runs into Market St West where you pass the Market St Social pub, which is linked to the Plau bar, beyond there is the Playhouse. I used to very occasionally show up there to watch theatre performances but remember it mainly for when it was the location of the Preston film club which I attended a few times, though thinking back the only film I can recall watching was Luc Besson’s Subway featuring Christopher Lambert and Jean Reno. They always rather quaintly used to play the national anthem prior to every performance.

Across the road, in the 80’s was a tiny highly disreputable club called the Cherrytree which I never actually visited, but its reputation preceded it!

Back around on Great Shaw St you would find a former nightclub which had various names over the years including Green, The Club Royale, The Millionaires Club. The club was built in 1920 as a casino but its most famous era was in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s following its name change to the Gatsby in 1970. I remarkably don’t recall ever visiting in that era. It was a recognised Northern Soul/Dance venue, but they apparently also had legendary student nights!

The Gatsby. Image Credit Flickr.

It had two bars and two dancerooms and was a live venue and bands such as Showaddywaddy, Mud and Bay City Rollers graced the stage there.

In the 2010’s it rebadged itself as Blitz, a specific live venue which is not to be confused with the current Blitz next to the bus station, which I know as The Venue which will be covered in a future blog – all still with me?!! 

I saw two gigs there, the first on 28/03/13 was Nine Black Alps, who I was watching for the fourth and most recent time. It was to a degree diminishing returns as they were not as sharp and effective as a band as they had been a decade earlier. The place was half full and they were supported by Youth Society. The venue was even less full later that year when I witnessed a rather tired set from old punks the Vibrators. The site was subsequently sold by UCLAN for student accommodation.

Back on Friargate, the Irish themed bar O’Neills opened its doors in 1996 and swiftly became a regular watering hole for Uncle George and I, quite often being the final pub of the night for a cheeky Guinness and Black. We were recognised to a degree so when they launched the Guinness Cold brand, we were asked to review a couple of free pints, and I can confirm unsurprisingly we readily agreed and the beer passed the test!

Preston O’Neills. Image Credit Trip Advisor

For a few years it also became the location for Christmas Eve gatherings and the pub in a later year also built a rooftop beer garden. The pub name changed over to Shenanigans in 2017 before being refurbished the following year into a more open plan establishment and reopened as the Northern Way.

In the 2010’s they started having live acoustic acts who played either by the front door or on the raised area at the back of the pub, I have quantified this as a single venue as the ‘stages’ were in effect in the same room.

I saw seven bands there between 2013 and 2017. They were namely The Two of Us, Balls Band, Danny Rose, Marcus and Jaidi, Kevin Harper, Eddy Bland, and Sheena Brown. The first named of those was of interest as this was Uncle George and mine’s 400th gig together!