Tag: Sennen

Liverpool Venues 5 to 7

Before I outline the remaining events I have thus far attended in Liverpool, I wanted to provide some detail of all the missed gig opportunities on the other side of the River Mersey from the city centre. The first occurred when I attended my auntie’s wedding somewhere deep in Wallasey territory and there was a pub opposite the wedding reception building, but the name of the establishment evades me now. We visited briefly during the day but only Uncle George grasped the mantle to attend at one point in the evening where there was a band playing.

Following on from that quarter information tale, in July 21, Gill and I were scheduled to attend the Lets Rock 80’s festival at Wavertree Playing Fields (aka the Mystery). The derivation of the mystery moniker is down to the fact that the 104-acre park was donated to the Liverpool corporation by an anonymous well-wisher who subsequently transpired to be a shipping magnet. We were planning to commute in from the local nattily named Wavertree Technology Park train station but in the end, circumstances dictated we could not attend resulting in missing out of the dubious privilege of watching Sister Sledge, Odyssey, Wet Wet Wet and Adam Ant!  

Adam Ant. Image Credit thecurrent.org

I have previously attended gigs at library venues in Lancaster and Wigan and was hoping to tick Birkenhead off this list when we obtained tickets to see the French band Juniore for a chilled Sunday afternoon set, but it was subsequently cancelled and not rearranged due to issues with post-Brexit visa issues and Covid.

Another interesting sounding venue in that area is the Future Yard in Birkenhead. One of my favourite ever bands Sennen were undertaking a very rare tour and had added a date at that very venue. Unfortunately, I had a fixture clash and could not attend, and despite my exhortations to the band they didn’t add a Manchester date, so I have not yet added to my sole sighting of them at Manchester Night and Day in 2010.

Thus, I shall now move away from the hard luck stories onto actual gigs attended. One day in December 2019 I was working out of the Liverpool office and gravitating back down Liverpool Church Street to Lime Street station for my train home. I heard the unmistakable sound of a full band playing a street gig, the combo in question was Keywest.

Keywest band. Image Credit wordpress.com

Keywest are a four-piece folk band from Ireland and their route to success is an unusual one as they learnt and honed their craft by years of busking in the hot bed area of Grafton Street in Dublin. They had obviously decided to take a trip down memory lane by performing on a busy shopping street, I don’t whether that proceeded a gig in a more standard venue that evening.

On Matthew Street, you will find Liverpool Sgt Pepper’s Bar, like many in the area a Beatles themed establishment and the website informs that improbably and in fact impossibly they have music on ‘8 days a week’! In 2017 I caught a chap called John McDonna playing a set there.

In December 2021, I was over in Liverpool for an overnight work event and therefore naturally had to have a gander at the Ents 24 website to see if there were any musical events of note that coincided with my stay, thus discovering there was an interesting act on that very night at Liverpool EBGBS.

After work, we grabbed some tea in the Silk Road tapas and after a couple of drinks persuaded my colleague David Taylor to also attend the gig. David had previously pleasantly surprised me when he stated unexpectedly that he had not only heard of Mogwai but had actually seen them live which was good enough for me!

Heebies Jeebies (known locally as Heebies) has been a popular venue on Seel Street since it first incarnation as a jazz bar in the mid 90’s. In 2016 they opened the 250-year-old basement room as a live and club night venue and named it EBGBS.  Upon entering the establishment, I noted they had nailed the intended vibe as a dingy downstairs biker bar, in a good way! It reminded me of the Merchants pub near Lancaster train station.

EBGB’s dungeon setting! Image Credit architectural-emporium.co.uk

The venue has a capacity of 300 but there cannot have been more than fifty people in attendance that night, I can imagine when the place is full the view of the stage may be impaired due to the numerous pillars in place.

The support band was a post punk band from Oslo in Norway called Mayflower Madame, the main act was New Candys from Venice in Italy. Since their formation in 2008, their singer Fernando Nuti remains their ever-present member. In their early days they had support slots with the likes of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Crystal Stilts.

Their second album was recorded by John Willis, producer, and drummer of legendary psych rock band Loop, who coincidentally I am off to see today (21/05/23) on their comeback tour, 33.33 years since I last saw them at Manchester International 1 in January 1990. New Candys provided an enjoyable slab of gentle shoegaze before we headed back down the vibrant Seel Street, which looked worthy of further investigation at some future stage.      

Manchester Venues 44 to 46

As you traverse down the rather exposed A6 into the City Centre from Salford Crescent station you encounter the Old Pint Pot pub overlooking the River Irwell. It was originally a school and was called Adelphi Riverside in the eighties before obtaining its current moniker in the nineties and has been a regular haunt for Salford University alumni for many years.

It is a Marston’s Brewery pub and apparently has recently gone through an extensive refurbishment with the introduction of a state-of-the-art unique overhead beer dispense system called Palm Pour.  There is also a fine beer garden with a vantage over the river.

My first visit there was for a beer prior to watching AC/DC at MEN Arena in 2001. On another visit whilst meeting Gill after work I arrived first and upon entering the establishment my ears were assailed by the unmistakable sound of Husker Du’s sonic cover of the Byrds ‘Eight Miles High’. This remains one of my favourite ever Huskers track and I have never heard it in a pub environs before or after that day!  

See the source image
The Old Pint Pot. Image Credit scoopergen.co.uk

I have always been fond of this pub, and it remains a focal gathering point within the auspices of Sounds from the Other City festival. At the 2017 festival in the Old Pint Pot Main Bar, we saw a terrific band in an Americana vein called the Roasts, though searching now I cannot find reference of them, but I most certainly saw them! We also saw another act called Lord Kessell and the Drums.

On my first visit there in 2012 we saw a decent local post rock band called Day for Airstrikes, whose first full length album ‘Widows’ released in 2006 (not to be confused with Sennen’s debut album of the same name) through Piccadilly Records.   

There was a more conventional stage in the Old Pint Pot Upstairs and at the same event in 2018 we watched TV AM. At the following years event we saw a brief portion of indie band Pip Blom’s set, they were obviously a draw because we could barely push through the door!   

To exemplify the broad spectrum of venues utilised by the festival, the next one located just down the road is the Angel Centre, a healthy living centre offering free activities to the Salford community including events such as free E-Cig appointments and mental health and horticulture drop ins.

In the main room they had kitted up a small stage in the corner and a pop-up bar to the left. I have witnessed gigs there at each of the three SFTOC festivals I have attended.

See the source image
Angel Centre. Image Credit guerillapocasts.com

On my first foray in 2012 I saw Frazer King, a quirky six-piece band from the local suburb of Wythenshawe who were difficult to quantify but Ennio Morricone punk could be an apposite description of their sound.

In 2017 we saw a terrific band called Golden Dregs, led by driving force Benjamin Woods. They were a welcome blast of garage rock Americana and his vocals resembled Bill Callaghan of Smog; they went down a storm complemented by a cold brew from the bar. I completed the venue trilogy in 2018 by watching a local band called Cattle.