Tag: The Editors

Gigs from Abroad Part 23 – Belfast Part 2

My second trip to the fair city of Belfast was on the lads first post-covid trip in 2023 as we thought we would reboot the annual shindig that year by going for a nearby location instead of mainland Europe.   

We headed over on an early flight from Manchester to the International airport with five of us in total but additionally with Moggy and Gareth ploughing an alternate furrow into the City airport. Late morning found us tucking into a huge fry up in one of the numerous cafes dotted around the city streets.

A proportion of the travelling crew were fans of the Slow Readers Club who happened to be playing in town that very evening. In fact, Moggie and Gareth had earlier had a star spot when they encountered members of the band at the airport, and it transpired after a brief chat and photo shoot they were also on the same flight.

After we located and booked in at our hotel in the Cathedral Quarter and Jez Catlow found his room which was down an ‘infinity and beyond’ corridor. He was also not assisted later on by the fact that his door card needed resetting a couple of times which involved each time a long trog to reception and back! 

John Hewitt pub. Image Credit niplanner.com

Our first port of call was just around the corner to the John Hewitt, the namesake being a poet and socialist who opened the Unemployed Resource Centre in 1983 which evolved into the public house and restaurant in 1999. It is the first social enterprise bar in Belfast. They had some fine ales available and regular live music, and we did return the following night to endeavour to catch some tunes but were denied entry as they had closed the doors due to the rest rooms being unavailable. 

Our next venue was the Belfast Kitchen Bar which prior to its opening in 1859 was a women’s boarding house. It was located next to the Empire Theatre so hence regularly full of actors and thespians. In July 2004, it was controversially and shamefully demolished to make room for the Victoria Square shopping centre. The bar then moved to a new location nearby in 2005 and they host regular live music including a chap called Gerry on our sojourn there.

The next hostelry of choice was the Belfast Garrick on Chichester Street, it was a homely traditional pub with three bars. It has been in situ at that site since 1870 and evolved into its current name in 1892 with a purported nod to the fashionable Garrick Club that was in vogue in London at that time. They have regular bands performing and on the night it took me a little time due to the hubbub in the establishment before noticing there was a ceilidh band playing quietly away in a corner by the door.

We then grabbed some tucker before heading down to the main event at Belfast Limelight 2. The venue has been in operation since 1984 and consists of three separate spaces, the first being the rooftop terrace the Rock Garden which stages live shows, the second is Limelight 1 which is the newest kid on the block and Slayer and Steve Earle have played there. We were in Limelight 2 which is the slightly smaller venue, which was in place when the club first opened, and luminaries such as the Strokes and Joe Strummer have performed in that space.    

Slow Readers Club on stage at Limelight. Image Credit limelightbelfast.com

Slow Reader’s Club evolved in 2009 from the ashes of 2000’s rock band Omerta and the four piece contains Wythenshawe siblings Aaron and Kurtis Starkie. In the spirit of the 1980’s ethos, they have been patently DIY in their approach via relentless gigging, social media endorsements and the self-release and design of their first two albums. These components all resulted in developing a loyal fanbase which reminds me of the Hold Steady level of fervency. Their third and fourth albums bore the fruit of these endeavours as they both hit the Top 20. They are not totally my bag, but they put on a decent show live and are firmly in the Interpol/Editors mould.

Also in the audience was my pal and superfans Ian Watson and his wife Elise who were travelling around watching the band and attended the Dublin show the following night. Post gig, we decamped to the nearby Belfast Pug Ugly’s Draft House which was a tidy little bar with an orange exterior. On an elevated stage there we saw a chap called Eamonn playing.  

The following day we jumped on the train to the bonny town of Bangor with its funfair and its seaside walks. The second pub we visited was the famous Trident pub immortalised in the opening lines to Stiff Little Fingers ‘Alternative Ulster’, namely ‘There’s nothing for us in Belfast, The Pound’s old and that’s a pity, Okay, there’s the Trident in Bangor, and then you walk back to the city’. We stayed there a while and watched a chaotic Grand National.  

Bangor seafront. Image Credit sunnybangor.com

When we landed back in Belfast, Uncle George, Jez and I had an excellent curry in one of the local restaurants before heading back to Belfast McConnell’s near our digs.  It was a cavernous pub with several rooms, and we negotiated our way past the bouncers into the large music room. There was a bash em out band called Aidan’s Boys, and the venue was absolutely bouncing with a terrific atmosphere. We leaned on the corner of the bar and sampled a couple of fine Guinness’s.

On the Sunday we worked our route via a couple of hostelries prior to arriving back at the airport. We had a less troubled route than Moggy and Gareth whose flight was cancelled, and they were subsequently put up for a night in a hotel before departing the next day. They were also fortunately provided with a small stipend with which they chose to spend on more ale! 

Stockport Venues 5 and 6

In the continuance of my ongoing Stockport story, I am going to initially backtrack to new venues visited in areas that I have already covered. The first one in that regard is the Stockport Dog and Partridge located at the junction of Didsbury Road and Burnage Lane just outside the East Didsbury metro station.

Stockport Dog and Partridge. Image Credit yelp.com

The D&P is a large, detached pub that originally opened in 1959 replacing an older pub a couple of doors down. It was at that stage under the jurisdiction of Boddingtons Brewery and was a sister to the nearby Griffin hostelry owned by the same company. It underwent a significant refurbishment in 2017, shortly before I moved into that area. I initially cited this as a Manchester establishment, but I then subsequently discovered it is in fact about 20 yards over the Stockport border.

There are benches facing the main road at the front of the pub and a more enclosed beer garden at the rear which Gill and I utilised a couple of times during the pandemic. Inside it is brightly lit and caters quite heavily toward live sports and on occasions can be a tad rough and ready.  I had noted that in the last couple of years they began referencing live music on Saturday nights, so a Didsbury Road pub crawl was arranged with Marcus in tow to take advantage of this fact.

We started further up Didsbury Road and visited the Crown, Heatons, the aforementioned Griffin before arriving at the Dog and Partridge about 9.30pm. We grabbed a table in the corner and caught a local singer called Dennis playing.

Progressing then over to Moor Top you would find Stockport Nook. This café bar first opened in 2015, and I visited for the first time three years later where on the outside tables you can nuzzle a coffee during the day or a craft beer in the evening. At that stage they rather bizarrely had the lavatories behind the bar. Since the pandemic they have created a shared space with the chippy on the left and Roost at 113 on the right which encompasses three restaurants with tapas, Mexican and Italian cuisine available under one roof.     

Stockport Nook. Image Credit stockporthub.co.uk

Around this time Nook totally refurbished their establishment with repurposed timber and other artefacts. They also linked up with North Manchester based pizzeria Dough So Good who have now built a pizza shack in the covered beer garden downstairs (previously a car parking space) which is accessed from the back of the building. They also have on their schedule vinyl nights and Open Door Thursdays with music acts performing and on one of those very evenings we saw a chap called Acoustic Al play there.

Martin Stephenson and the Daintees were a folk based band from the Northeast of England who were formed in 1982 after the lead singer and self-taught musician had previously commenced busking at the age of fifteen. They were signed initially to a local independent label called Kitchenware Records alongside other bands such as the Kane Gang and Prefab Sprout. The label also struck gold a couple of decades later by capturing The Editors at an early stage who recorded their platinum selling album ‘The Back Room’ with them.

Martin Stephenson’s combo who also contain his wife Kate took an eight-year hiatus in 1992 but then reformed and have operated continuously since 2000. They released their most acclaimed album Boat to Bolivia in 1986 and like many other bands have undertaken full tours since playing that album in full.  He also collaborated with Billy Connolly in 2018 on a documentary about the comedian’s colourful life.

Martin Stephenson live at Plot 20 Allotment Music Festival. Image Credit youtube.com

In a previous blog I referenced the Blue Cat in Heaton Moor where the band played in 2009. My good pal Mark was there, and he told me the tale of a request then being made of Martin to play at a local allotment. He had a renowned predilection for playing obscure unusual venues, so he readily accepted the challenge.  Thus on 06/09/09, you would find him undertaking a gig with large sunflowers in the background and the set even includes a Postman Pat/Muppet Show medley! Slightly wonky footage of his performance there can be found on You Tube under Plot 20 Allotment Music Festival.