Tag: Preston The Venue

Preston Venue 52 Moor Park – Part 1

Somewhat remarkably I have arrived at the door of my 200th (and 201st) blog so I cogitated long and hard about to what to cover in this particular piece and eventually decided to write about what was arguably Preston’s biggest ever music event in terms of national exposure in my lifetime.    

On returning from a holiday in early 2007 we were informed that astonishingly the Radio 1 Big Weekend was to be held in the sleepy backwater of Preston in May 2007, and not only that but the venue chosen was Preston Moor Park, a ten-minute bumble from where I lived at that time. This event was Europe’s biggest free ticketed event, with 35k punters in attendance over the two days.

   Moor Park with an outdoor stage in approximately 1955. Image Credit flickr.com

Moor Park is Preston’s largest and oldest park. It was the site of the Battle of Preston in 1648 where there was a four-hour scrap between the New Model Army, commanded by Oliver Cromwell (commemorated in song by Elvis Costello) and the Royalist and the Scots. Horse racing was held there annually between 1736 and 1833, and there is still in place the stone that was the starting point for the races.

Also, in 1833 it was rebadged as Moor Park and the original Serpentine Lake and ‘Ladies Walk’ (Moor Park Avenue) remain to this day. Preston North End began their existence initially as a cricket club on the park before changing over to football and moving location onto the other side of Deepdale Road.

During the Great War, it was utilised as a hospital and in the Second World War as a prisoner of war camp. The observatory was installed in 1927 just before a rare occurrence of a total eclipse in that year.

Moor Park with Deepdale in the background. Image Credit blogpreston.co.uk

There was an open-air baths in existence there until the early 1970’s, just before my time though I do recall visiting the other open-air baths in Haslam Park across town before that closed, though from memory the water was brutally cold! I do also remember they had a decent pitch and putt golf course in the middle part of Moor Park in the 1980’s.  

The first challenge was to purloin a ticket for the Radio 1 shindig, and they did thankfully allocate a vast proportion to local postcodes. After submitting applications from several addresses (with prior agreement!) I was notified we had been allocated two tickets for the Sunday bill, though confirmation was only received ten days before the event. The tickets were free though that did not stop many greedy charlatans trying to sell them at hugely inflated prices, before thankfully the sites were shut down!

It was obviously broadcast live on Radio 1, and coverage was also available on BBC Three, with Edith Bowman, Jo Whiley and Chris Moyles amongst others in attendance. There was a huge encouragement for attendees to use public transport as there is very limited parking facilities in that area, two separate park and rides schemes were set up to assist in this venture.   

There were many Fringe events with local bands playing at the Mad Ferret, 53 Degrees, Bitter Suite, Kolor Bar and the Venue. They featured acts such as Jelly’s Last Jam, King Casanova, How’s My Pop and Redwings who had recently had a support slot with the Subways.

King Casanova playing Oxjam in Preston in 2007. Image Credit flickr.com

On the Saturday there was an exciting vibe as festival goers walked past the end of my road and I could hear the music from the bands in the distance. My pal Rick Clegg was in attendance and acts playing that day included Razorlight, Kasabian, The Gossip, Biffy Clyro, CSS, Scissor Sisters and LCD Soundsystem.

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.