Tag: Teenage Fanclub

2021 Gigs – Part 2

I am continuing to look at the post-apocalypse year of 2021 where I somehow managed to attend 33 gigs. There is a suite of new venues in this year which will be featured in future blogs, however I am going to focus on the venues already visited and covered in previous articles.

On the 21st of August, I managed to finally return over to Preston and have my first night out there for 18 months. After watching PNE in the afternoon, Uncle George and I met up with John Dewhurst and we had a sally down the pubs on Friargate. This included a visit to the ever-unchanged Preston Olde Black Bull, where there was a thunderously loud band called Law and Order playing in the main room. It was low quality fare, and its only relevant significance was the fact that it was my 200th gig in Preston.

We also headed up to Preston Market where they have now put in place a deserved tribute bench to commemorate Preston’s very own Nick Park, the abundantly imaginative creator of Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, now I have mentioned it please try and stop yourself humming the theme tune to Wallace & Gromit. He also coincidentally attended the same secondary school as myself though he was a few years above me.

Nick Park bench with the chap himself. Image Credit wallaceandgromit.com

As we walked up Orchard Street, we could hear the unmistakeable rumble of a live band, and therefore bonus gig said I! As it was a balmy August evening, they had erected a stage at the Lancaster Road end of the covered outdoor market just beyond the Orchard Bar. After purchasing a cold craft beer, we witnessed a young local band called the Avenhams, named after one of the main parks in the city. They had an enthusiastic friends and family crowd supporting them and despite veering into lad rock at times they were enjoyable.

On the 7th September I attended my first indoor pay gig at Manchester Academy 2, the venue now clearly rattling into second place on my most visited venue list. Prior to the event and as it was a pleasant Tuesday evening, we purloined some outdoor seats at a pub that remarkably I had never visited before, which was the Ducie Arms buried behind the Manchester University campus.  

The gig was a sell-out, but I surmise that post-pandemic sold out capacities are less than previous restrictions as it clearly felt there was room to breathe in the venue, and that appears to be a sensible continuing ongoing action in my experience of the gigs I have attended since. They operated one-way systems and there was a very civilised queue at the bar, and everyone was understandably noticeably considerate of others and their own personal space. 

The band on stage was the timeless Teenage Fanclub who were in peerless form and Norman Blake had a manic grin throughout, no doubt as relieved as all of us to be back on the tour schedule. Many travelled from far and wide including Stephanie (@peripixie on twitter) who travelled in from America prior to her watching them at their spiritual home Glasgow Barrowland the following week.

Teenage Fanclub. Image Credit Tiny Mix Tapes

Post gig we went for a cold one at Big Hands further down Oxford Road. Whilst Marcus and Gill were ensconced in the roof top beer garden upstairs, I was at the bar waiting for a lengthy beer barrel change when one lad at the bar inadvertently came out to his mate, which was a slightly surreal occurrence to witness.

A month later I headed into town on the No 50 bus to Manchester Club Academy to see the scouse band Red Rum Club. It was a gentle foray as I was departing the next day for a family gathering at a large house we had rented in Matlock. I had seen them three years earlier at Peer Hat and I thought they were excellent there as the sound was so crisp. They didn’t quite scale those heights this time, and I do think seeing a band for a second time is a tester of their ability and potential longevity, much like the second viewing of a movie.

Wickerman Festival 14

A degree of sadness pervades as I draft this week’s blog as it details the fourteenth and last ever Wickerman Festival to be held which took place on 24/25 July 2015. There were rumours for over a year around the future of the event, eventually resulting in the confirmation later in 2015 that Wickerman would be no more leaving a huge chasm in my annual gig calendar!

On the bill were the Waterboys, who I recall I first become aware of when they played the Tube on a Friday teatime on Channel 4, also playing were Squeeze whose set I enjoyed. Glasgow post punks Catholic Action and electronic synth band Ubre Blanca, bizarrely named after Fidel Castro’s favourite cow were also in residence, alongside Errors, Belle and the Beast, Beth Fourage, Be Charlotte, Wayne Devre Set, Sister Fox, Vaselines and the grungy Tuff Love.  

The punk contingent was covered by Amphetameanies and stalwarts Eddie and the Hot Rods with their timeless Top 10 hit ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do’, their only constant member being singer Barrie Masters, prior to his death in 2019. 

Cellist Calum Ingram headlined the Acoustic Tent and the reggae/ska corner had Jimmy Cliff with his ‘Many Rivers to Cross’. There was hip-hop from Hector Bizerk and main stage performances from Lulu, Stereo MC’s, the ever-impressive Neneh Cherry and Pere Ubu who I did once own one album by, namely ‘The Tenement Year’ however the only song I can recall is ‘George Had a Hat’.  

Neneh Cherry. Image Credit djdmac.com

Folk tones were ensured by Glasgow five-piece Washington Irving, John Bramwell, frontman from I Am Kloot, Chichester’s Tom Odell, Novantae! from Galloway and Rick Redbeard which was the solo performer stage name for Rick Anthony, lead singer for the Phantom Band.   

My notes also inform me that I saw SLUG who were promoting their debut album ‘Ripe’ though I cannot recall their performance. In the last two or three years they have received a lot more attention and received considerable radio airplay from the likes of Mark Reilly.

Aiden Moffett (of Arab Strap fame) and Bill Wells were also on the roster. We also headed over to the third stage to see the excellent Pains of Being Pure at Heart, who I was watching for the fifth and final time before their subsequent break up.

Many of my favourite Scottish bands had played this festival over the years including Teenage Fanclub, The View, The Proclaimers, Idlewild, Aerogramme and The Rezillos to name a few, however the cream of the crop Mogwai had never graced the festival.

This was partially rectified by Stuart Braithwaite, Mogwai main singer appearing for a solo set on the Acoustic stage which we obviously attended. I managed to have a brief photo shoot and chat with him and who knows if there had have been a following year perhaps Mogwai might have played, we shall never know! 

John Dewhurst, Uncle George, Stuart Braithwaite and me replete with dubious festival hat in the Acoustic Tent. Image Credit Mrs Braithwaite.

So, before we depart the South West Scotland amphitheatre permit me, if I may to take you on a final tour of the site. From the initial taxi/bus drop off point you would traverse through the tents to the wristband collection point then onto the main entrance which in reality was a hole in the wall.

Opposite the entrance you could purchase a stage times list before turning left past the funfair, circus or cinema, dependant on what they chosen to incorporate that particular year. Onwards past the Acoustic Tent, behind which in later years there was a craft beer and Mojito tent.

At the apex of the hill was the shop, Third Stage and Solus and Scooter Tents, of which the latter in the early years resembled a Mash Tent where they had stellar DJ’s playing. From here, you had a superb vantage to watch the Wickerman burning at midnight on the Saturday night. I seem to recall one year they had a little mini golf course next to the statue.  

Traversing down the hill rolled you past the VIP area and main beer tent, where occasionally bash em up bands would play. In the natural bowl was the main stage followed by the Dance and Silent Disco Tent. Just in advance of fully circling back to the main entrance you would find the fabulous Reggae Tent which was always erected on an incline. This tent was a regular final stopping point of the evening where you could purchase a hot mug of tea and a flapjack whilst being dually soothed by the Bob Marley inspired soundtrack and stoned by the pungent aroma permeating all around.     

A couple of years later, when in attendance at another Scottish festival, one of the gig brethren said the festival was good, but it is not Wickerman and we all murmured in assent, I can think of no more fitting epitaph than that!