Tag: REM

Manchester Venue 47 – Ruby Lounge

One of my favourite venues in Manchester was the Ruby Lounge situated on High Street opposite the Arndale Centre and backing onto the Northern Quarter. The venue opened in 2007 and sadly closed in 2018 as it was hoovered up in a £79m city centre development.

It was housed in a somewhat dilapidated seven store block and behind the unprepossessing metal doors were stairs carrying you down to the venue. It was one large room with battered sofas and a games machine to the left, bar facing and a stage to the right. It had a scruffy charm, and the capacity was 375 for live music and 600 for club nights. It had a thin access to view the stage that could be a slight inconvenience when it was busy.

See the source image
Entrance to the Ruby Lounge. Image Credit Britannia Hotels.

I attended there nine times in total and they always had a sonic sound system and as a result I have seen some astoundingly loud gigs. A case in point was my first attendance in 2009 to see A Place to Bury Strangers, a noise rock combo from New York. Remarkably the support band Dead Confederate outdid them on the decibel count. They hailed from the birthplace of REM in Athens, Georgia. Prior to the gig I had explored for the first time a selection of the plethora of bars located nearby in the Northern Quarter. Another regular pre-gig pub was the English Lounge which is only 100 yards from the venue.

My second and third visit also continued in that vein, first up were Rock Actions shoe gazers Twilight Sad. The next was to see Pelican, a post rock four piece from Chicago, Illinois. We were chatting to some punters prior to their set who advised us not to leave our beers on the wooden shelfs as the sound check was so loud, they had knocked a couple of glasses off. They were totally instrumental and ear splintering, and I would quantify them in my Top 5 loudest list, and they were also fabulous as it is so good to hear bands as uncompromising as they are!

See the source image
Pelican. Image Credit en.wikipedia.org

In 2010 I saw the grungy quartet Dinosaur Pile Up from Leeds. They did not stay long in the memory and it was one of those gigs where their friends and family were in attendance which I always find in equal parts odd but endearing.

In 2014, I saw Pains from Being Pure at Heart for the fourth time and it was by now unfortunately a case of diminishing returns as their output for me gradually depreciated after their stunning debut album. They were not a patch on their electrifying set in Chorlton 5 years earlier which I will cover in a future blog. They were supported by Fear of Men.

Later that year I saw again the perennial London punks Snuff who were in fine fettle and their cover of the Likely Lads propelled me as ever into the mosh pit! The following year I went to see Preston’s Evil Blizzard due primarily to support them on a Manchester date. Despite them putting on a show I couldn’t warm to their musical output. They were supported by Creature Comforts.

My penultimate gig there was a terrific double bill of Ex Hex and Jacuzzi Boys, both bands I had seen before. Jacuzzi Boys are a highly accomplished garage rock band from Miami in Florida. Ex Hex are all female three-piece hailing from Washington DC and are in the mould of the Go-Go’s and had an effervescent presence. My final gig there was on 28/05/16 to see an Australian band called the Rubens as part of the Dot to Dot festival roster.

Liverpool Venue 1 – The Royal Court

Mainly due to unreliable transport links I have been an irregular visitor to Liverpool for gigs though I have visited many times with work. I have always found Liverpool to be a vibrant and interesting place to frequent.

My first visit on a train was a mistake as for only the second time in my life I boarded the wrong train, not my fault honestly guv, and of course this error was compounded on arrival at Lime St Station by the fact that I missed the hourly train back to Preston by a wafer-thin margin of 2 minutes!

Coincidentally I was on Lime St station yesterday travelling back after a dramatic day at the cricket watching Lancashire at the quaint Aigburth ground. I have once caught the ferry across the Mersey and yes, they do play that track but thankfully only a 10 second excerpt! I have also attended the Grand National twice without finding the winner.

I never attended the infamous Eric’s venue thus my first two Liverpool gigs were at the Royal Court Theatre in Roe Street in the city centre which is very close to Lime St station. The current Royal Court was built in 1938 in an Art Deco style, and it was fortunate to survive the subsequent blitz. It is noteworthy for being the home of the stage debuts of Richard Burton and Judi Dench in the 1950’s.

See the source image
Liverpool Royal Court building. Image Credit Liverpool Echo

It gained Grade II status in 1990 and was taken over by Rawhide Comedy Club in 2005 and it is still operational today producing comedy skit performances with titles such as Little Scouse on the Prairie.

In the 1980’s it was utilised as a music venue and the likes of Rage Against the Machine and David Bowie graced the stage. The three levels of Stalls, Grand Circle and Balcony equated to a capacity of 1186, and it was a grand old venue. I unsurprisingly frequented the cheap ‘seats’ of standing in the mosh pit.

My first visit was on 2nd May 1989, and we commuted there in John Dewhurst’s work van. I recall it was a scrum at the bar prior to the Pixies hitting the stage at 9.15pm. the place was about half full and they had just released their third album ‘Doolittle’.

As ever with the Pixies, it was a vibrant tropically hot mosh pit and I recall them playing ‘River Euphrates’, ‘Mr Grieves, ‘Debaser’ and ‘Monkey Goes to Heaven’. My two highlights were the contrasting ‘Hey’ and the primal ‘Tame’ replete with Black Francis screaming like a banshee! They did an hour set and we had a debrief in a pub in Ormskirk on the way home.

My second and final visit was 19 days later to see REM, and it was on a very warm Sunday evening. The daytime was a combination of sunbathing and of Uncle George and I buying some tickets for an upcoming PNE v Port Vale play off which we unsurprisingly lost! 

We travelled over in George’s trusty yellow Cavalier. On arrival in Liverpool, we landed in an Irish pub near the station and were subject to some sustained cadging from a fellow punter. This cadging theme continued in the next pub, and we made a sensible decision to head into the venue.

REM took to the stage at 9pm. It was an early tour for them, and they were a country mile away from the polished article you saw a decade later, as Michael Stipe was a particularly shy performer at that juncture, but he still oozed charisma. He resembled an eccentric David Byrne and at times was muttering away into a loudspeaker about diverse subjects of CND and Greenpeace.

Michael Stipe in loudspeaker mode. Image Credit Pat Papertown 2

They opened with ‘Pop Song 89’ and I recall them playing ‘Disturbance at the Heron House’, ‘Orange Crush’ and ‘World Leader Pretend’. He then somewhat ironically introduced ‘It’s the End of the World as we Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ as the best song ever written. They performed two encores encompassing eight tracks including ‘Stand’ and ‘Finest Worksong’ and finished with a cover of Velvet Underground ‘After Hours’.

On the commute out of the city, we were very nearly side swiped by a speeding cop car! I recall 5 Live had commentary on a Nigel Benn v Michael Watson boxing match prior to stopping to refuel in Ormskirk with a Chinese takeaway. Just around New Longton, outside Preston, an REM track came on the radio to top of a fine night.

A postscript here is that for the first 77 gigs I attended I used to write a full review of the entire minutiae of the night and these two Liverpool gigs have finally exhausted this archive.