Tag: The Beatles

Liverpool Venues 8 to 10

The city of Liverpool, much like Manchester excels itself in retaining the grand architecture of vintage buildings. Meeting this particular criteria, Liverpool Old Bank public house on James Street down near the waterfront was originally the National Bank built in 1920. When it reopened as a hostelry it retained the American style ornate grandeur including the original tiled floors and high ceilings. It initially opened under the First National Bar name before morphing into the Old Bank in 2018.

Liverpool Old Bank. Image Credit theoldbankliverpool.co.uk

It contains a large bespoke bar on the ground floor with a smaller mezzanine bar in the upstairs area and it was on this upper deck that a group of us gathered for my pal Joe Glenny’s leaving do in November 2023 as he was jetting off for a career break in Australia. Whilst we were in residence there was a posse of acoustic musicians playing on a small stage downstairs.

I managed to glean one of the performer’s names so can record I saw a singer called Aidan play there. I did subsequently notify Joe a few months later that Mogwai were playing in Sydney when he was in residence there, but he shamefully missed attending the gig, there’s just no helping some people!

On a separate occasion, I was pottering around near Central station, as you do, and on Ranelagh Street chanced upon Liverpool Ranelagh’s Tavern. It is a ten a penny Irish theme bar and there was a singer called Seamus yodelling away in the corner.

Ranelagh’s Tavern. Image Credit ranelaghs.co.uk

Liverpool naturally exploits their hometown history with the Beatles and there are a plethora of bars paying homage to the band down Mathew Street and the most famous of them all is the Cavern Club where they played many of their early gigs.

In fact, between the 9th of February 1961 and the 3rd of August 1963 they performed there 292 times, and they were initially billed as deriving from Hamburg. They were surpassed only by the Hideaways who followed them as the resident house band who played over 400 gigs and were thus rewarded with their name being included on the wall of fame.

The Cavern opened its doors in 1957 as a jazz club with its driving force being a local chap called Alan Synter who found a cellar space which was being used at that stage as a tropical fruit warehouse and prior to that a World War II air raid shelter. It is said that when the club was at full capacity, the heat resulted in a sweet fruity smell emanating from the walls, which then became locally known as the ‘Cavern Perfume’. 

The club then moved on to embrace the mood of the day and rebadged itself as a Merseybeat venue. Bands who played there in that period include Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Black Sabbath, Queen and the Who and the local lass Cilla Black was employed there as a hat-check girl.

The Beatles on stage at the Cavern Club. Image Credit beatlesbible.com

Its history then became a little complicated when it closed in 1973 to make way for a ventilation shaft for the new Merseyrail underground railway. That however was never completed, and the site then turned into a car park. There were plans to reopen it in 1982, but it was identified that it was structurally impossible to do so. Many of the bricks from the original cellar were then sold to raise funds for the Strawberry Fields Children’s home.

At a 90-degree angle across the road, they decided to build a new Cavern which was recreated as much as they could in its original image. The initial owner was the former Liverpool football player Tommy Smith, but it closed again in December 1989 when it lost its licence following a vicious assault on a customer resulting in imprisonment for those involved.  

In July 1991 three friends reopened it and still run the club today. A chap called Paul McCartney returned to play a couple of gigs and secret warm up events were staged there by Arctic Monkeys, Jake Bugg, Travis and Oasis over the years. My one visit to Liverpool Cavern Club took place there in 2013 where I witnessed a singer called Freddie. I walked past recently and noted that they now charge simply for the privilege of entering the establishment, so I may not be visiting again!

Gigs from Aboard Part 13 Vietnam – Part 2

We continued our Vietnam trip in 2014/15 by heading over to Phu Quoc, an island off the south coast where we spent Christmas Day and the trickiest challenge whilst there was to decide whether I preferred either Saigon Red or Saigon Green beer (for the record it was a marginal preference for the Green).  

When we were sat outside the cabin one evening, we witnessed the surreal sight of a cockerel casually walking down the path and then up the steps of the lodgings opposite. It then proceeded to tap its beak on the door and waited patiently, after two attempts with no reply it retraced its route and strutted off into the sunset.

‘Not the actual cockerel’. Image Credit raising-happy-chickens.com

I was at that point checking that I wasn’t drinking a Saigon ‘special’ beer but then gathered the intel from our neighbours that the previous owners had been feeding it, but they had flown home that morning leaving our resident cockerel shy of a snack that evening. This event reminded me of a story in Paul Auster’s ‘True Tales of American Life’, a book I would heartily recommend.  

Our next destination was Hoi An, with its ancient town and bustling marketplace and excellent food. We hired bicycles for a couple of days and cycled out to the nearby beach and into the residential areas where the tannoy’s on the street spouted out their ongoing Government propaganda.

When we were in a particularly touristy area of Singapore, we were stung with a beer price of nearly £10 (near to Manchester Ritz prices!), but in total contrast in one restaurant in Hoi An I obviously had to sample their local moonshine beer at 42p a pint. Unsurprisingly it was pretty poor fare! As we had been away for a sustained period, there was one night where we craved some different food. In this regard, we discovered a nearby Australian diner called Dingo Deli where we feasted on some excellent cheese on toast and drinkable coffee!   

Dingo Deli. Image Credit tripadvisor.jn.

On New Years Eve we headed down to the busy bars at Hoi An Harbour where they had set up a big stage for the celebrations, and performing was a local act called Louie, who were then followed by a fireworks display.  The only downside was the monsoon weather, so we saw the New Year in with a very tasty doughnut from a street trader before heading back to our digs.

A couple of days later we walked past Hoi An Que Nha Bar on the way to a restaurant and intriguingly we could see a stage set up. We passed a couple of hours later and the place was in full flow, and we were encouraged through the door by the local punters outside. To our astonishment we were provided front row seats in the packed bar resulting in envious glances from later attendees.  

Hoi An river view. Image Credit pinterest.

The venue was in effect a karaoke bar with backing music provided by a band called Hang Truang. We had no idea of the required etiquette as we crouched down on the little stools, but gathered quickly that karaoke was a serious business here and is all about the audience reaction though it turns out we had vastly different viewpoints than the other customers.

One singer who we thought was high quality was subjected to a brutally complete silence at the end of the track, but another performer who literally murdered ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles was rewarded with roses thrown on the stage. I also unintentionally caused a bit of chaos by breaking the lavatory door, and I had only had a couple of drinks! We stayed for about an hour and thoroughly enjoyed our karaoke experience and it was a fascinating insight into the local culture.