Tag: The Cure

Glasgow Venue 11 – Bellahouston Park

Glasgow Bellahouston Park (Pairc Bhaile Uisdean in Gaelic) is a public park in the Southern quarter of Glasgow and encompasses a tidy area of 180 acres, it first opened its doors to the public in 1896. There were additions to the site over the next few years including a municipal golf course being located there.

Between May and December 1938, the Empire Exhibition was held in the park and the opening ceremony which took place in nearby Glasgow Rangers Ibrox stadium attracted a crowd of 146,000. Despite it being an exceptionally soggy summer, the Exhibition attracted an astounding 12,800,000 visitors and it wasn’t even open on a Sunday! I know it is a long time ago as that is the year my beloved Preston North End last won the FA Cup.

A flyer advertising the 1938 Exhibition. Image Credit barnebys.co.uk

The most striking exhibit was Tait Tower (the Tower of Empire) which rose to 300 feet in height. There is an urban myth, though hotly denied, that its subsequent demolition the following summer was due to concerns around it being cited as a geographical reference for German bombers.  Regretfully of the 200 artefacts built for the exhibition, only the Palace of Art remains and even that is now a Sports Excellence Centre!

The site is a perfect backdrop for large public events. It has hosted the 1978 World Cross Country Championships, a gathering for the evangelist Billy Graham and two papal visits, the first in 1982 by John Paul II attracted a crowd of approximately 250,000. On the musical front, there have been Scottish pipe band competitions and Coldplay and Snow Patrol have also performed there.

Due to its inherent suitability, resembling a mega size version of Avenham Park in Preston, they began in August 2013 to stage three-day Glasgow summer sessions events there with Kings of Leon, Avicii and Eminem being the original cast of headliners. In 2019 Mogwai announced they were to play but in a slightly unusual twist via being in a support role to the Cure. Upon hearing this fine news, tickets and trains were purchased with Uncle George and Andy Berry escorting me on this particular jaunt.

Bellahouston Park. Image Credit Ents24.

I undertook the now extra leg from Manchester to Preston where I met the other chaps, and we jumped on to the next Avanti going North. After we grabbed our digs for the night, we had a couple of cold ones in a local bar which preceded a fish and chip tea. We then travelled on the Paisley Canal line from Glasgow Central to the station at Dumbreck, which is located 250 yards away from the park.  

There was a pleasant treelined avenue en route before landing at the security gates. Inside we met up with Marcus and his then current girlfriend Sarah who were also in attendance. The weather was unfortunately a bit tempestuous, and the ground was a tad muddy as a result. First up were the ever noisy Twilight Sad who now reside on Mogwai’s Rock Action label, and I was witnessing them for the fifth time in total.

Mogwai played under the worst of the weather and after so many years of watching them it felt hugely odd that they were not the headliners, but they were clearly honoured to be asked to play on the bill by one of their favourite bands. Their shortened set still contained the highlights of ‘Ithica’ and ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’.

Before the main act we decided to refuel with some more overpriced ale and trogged up to the hill to the main beer tent. Upon arrival, the people waiting kept snaking outwards and it wasn’t immediately evident where was the end point of what must have been the longest beer queue in the whole of Christendom! One upside was that we had a clear view of the stage, but the Cure were already performing by the time we finally reached the front.

Somewhat surprisingly, and not least to myself, I had never managed to catch the Cure live, the nearest I had come previously was at the Manchester Move Festival, but a decision was made to catch the reformed Pixies who played the night after. I had heard reports from my peers that they could sometimes be a tad ‘Neil Young contrary’ by playing a set of album tracks but on the counterpoint of that others had said they were compelling in a live setting.

The Cure on stage on the night. Image Credit youtube.com

Thankfully on the night I witnessed them, they fell into the second category. They were one of the tightest bands I have ever witnessed, bringing to minds other such accomplished bands on first sightings such as Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Wolf Alice, Electric 6 and Fontaines DC.

They were also mesmerizingly uncompromising with the refreshing attitude of if you don’t like it, move on, I have so much respect for bands like that! They performed a 27-song set with an epic seven track encore and despite tough competition, my favourite was ‘A Forest’ as I have always adored that tune.                          

On the return journey home the next day, we encountered a very strange scenario. The train ground to a halt at Lancaster station with no discernible sign of onward traction, it transpired that our forward engine was broken. Thus, the ask was for us to walk over the bridge to the other platform and swap places onto the original northbound Glasgow train, which would then retrace its route back to Preston. 

This necessitated ten full carriages of punters swapping from one train to another, including the young, old and infirm and as I am sure you can appreciate it was a fair period of time before we on our way again!  

Glasgow Venues 6 to 7

In August 2014 I made another trip up the scenic West Coastline to Glasgow to see Mogwai with the usual ‘Mog trio’ of Uncle George, John Dewhurst and I in tow. It was a late arranged sojourn, so I had secured some slightly unusual accommodation as I recall it was linked to a church and located somewhere near Bath Street.

We fancied heading to a couple of different places on this trip but naturally prior to that it had to be music part 1 first, thus our initial port of call was Glasgow 13th Note Cafe. This bar was originally a pub on Glassford Street before moving to its current home on King Street in Merchant City in 1997, the original site has now become Bar Bacchus. The franchise subsequently then hoovered up a bigger club venue on Clyde Street and the 13th Note was then taken over by the Barfly group in 2002.  

13th Note Cafe. Image Credit wee-dundee.co.uk

Many of the local bands of the time, namely Bis and Urusei Yatsura played there, and it was famously the location of one of Mogwai’s very early gigs as detailed in Stuart Braithwaite’s engaging autobiography ‘Spaceships over Glasgow’ which I have recently consumed.  The chap who booked the bands was Alex Huntley who latterly changed his name to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand fame, many of the gigs in the early days were free of charge.

The ground floor is a bar and a thriving vegan café, and the basement room is the music venue with gigs virtually every night. I had heard the local act The Vex were undertaking a Saturday afternoon residence so down we headed into the sweat box. They were a punk/new wave band and playing an epic 2 hour set which in our 30-minute portion we caught an excellent cover version of Cure’s ‘The Forest’, one of my fave tracks of theirs. 

We jumped on the subway at St Enoch’s station for a foray out to the West End of Glasgow where after a sally around the Botanical Gardens we visited the very grand building of Oran Mor for a beer, I have never yet managed to attend a gig there in the music room located upstairs. We then visited the ‘Harry Potter’ style street of Ashton Lane before undertaking the return journey and randomly jumping off at Bridge Street station.

Glasgow Oran Mor. Image Credit Pinterest.

We decamped into the Lauriestown Bar by the river, the Mogwai gig was taking place at Glasgow Richmond Park but when we asked for directions in the pub, we drew blank expressions from the resident punters. We decided to obtain a taxi number and our transport duly arrived. The taxi driver was also lacking in local knowledge and more intent on imparting his current employment woes on us, but we persuaded him to ‘do his job’ and we finally found the park about ten minutes before the show started!

Laurieston Bar. Image Credit tripadvisor.ca

Richmond Park was opened in 1899 and is a huge location of 12 hectares in size, and it appears the area is closed for major investment works at the moment as part of a regeneration programme. The event was part of a two-day shindig called the East End Social Last Big Weekend.

There was a partial marquee where Mogwai took the stage and apologised for drinks availability during the earlier sets, though they stated it had been beyond their control. They were as enjoyable as ever and post gig due to a dearth of taxis we undertook the long walk via Glasgow Green back up to Sauchiehall Street where we ended the evening with ‘one for the ditch’!