Tag: The Lovely Eggs

Manchester Venues 149 to 150 – New Century Hall

Of the four main city centre train stations, Victoria would probably be my least attended as it has always been slightly on the wrong side of the tracks for me! Now if you depart the station down the approach heading alongside the tram tracks towards Shudehill Interchange but deviate marginally to the left down Hanover Street, you reach the Sadler’s Cat public house.

Sadler’s Cat pub. Image Credit secretmanchester.com

The Sadler’s was originally known as the Pilcrow which was purpose built as part of a regeneration programme commitment by the Co-operative Society, following the demolition of the Crown and Cushion pub to make way for a new public road. The current name reflects the commemoration of the very site of the first hot air balloon flight in 1785 and the pilot being one James Sadler who took his feline friend with him on the trip! The pub is contained within the NOMA complex and is now owned by the Cloudwater brewery and is a good basking spot in the summer with a suite of outside tables.

Staying with the Co-op theme, across the square from the hostelry you find the New Century Hall which was built as their 1000 capacity Insurance Society building in 1962 and sits adjacent to New Century House. They had many major acts play there in the 1960’s including Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Kinks. There is also an anecdote of the Jimi Hendrix Experience performing there in 1966 and a young John Cooper Clarke being denied entry as he was not wearing the obligatory tie, despite being bedecked in Fred Perry and a striped sports coat, bouncers eh! 

John Cooper Clarke. Image Credit pinterest.com

It is a three-storey building with the basement containing the Access Creative College where you can obtain degrees in music and gaming. The ground floor houses the Manchester New Century Food Hall where I first visited in December 2022 on a Christmas works do where we partook some tucker from one of the many food vendors and watched the England v Wales World Cup match. Where the big screen showing the match was located, there is normally a stage, and I have seen a couple of local singers perform there.

Upstairs from there is the Manchester New Century Hall which on first sight I was instantly impressed by with the wood surrounds and tasteful lighting. Even when busy it remains an accessible venue with ability to scoot down the sides to obtain a spot nearer to the stage. I can see myself in the future checking their listings from a venue viewpoint ahead of many others in the city where they become an almighty scrum when reaching capacity, the Albert Hall being a case in point.

My first attendance was in May 2023 with Gill and our good friends and fellow rabble rousers Jo and Paul. We had a couple of drinks around the Kampus area near Piccadilly and in the Northern Quarter. The band we were going to see was The Beths from Auckland in New Zealand. They were promoting their hugely recommended third album ‘Expert in a Dying Field’ which I have given serious airplay to as I love the upbeat nature of it, and I thoroughly enjoyed their set. Their sound reminds me of a fellow upcoming band called Fortitude Valley.      

Manchester New Century Hall. Image Credit manchestereveningnews.co.uk

My next attendance was with Gill in June 2024 where we only shamefully discovered the Abel Heywood Hydes brewery pub for the first time, but we have rectified that by attending a couple of times since. The band that night was the Lovely Eggs who I didn’t enjoy as much as their previous times I have seen them.  

There then followed two attendances in Sept 2024. The first was remarkably for me to see Ride for the first time, however I had previously seen an individual set by Mark Gardener at Preston Continental back in November 2011 where they also showed a screening of ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’ which provides a story of the Oxford music scene featuring Ride alongside many other bands.    

For the uninitiated, Ride were prime shoegaze pioneers releasing two highly touted albums on Creation records in the early 1990’s. They broke up in 1996 before reforming in 2014 and were touring their latest album ‘Interplay’. The sound quality was poor early on but once they sorted that out, they were excellent.

My latest visit involved a large group of us including my pals Jason Gill and Barry Jury going to see the Go Team for the fourth time and for my first time for 14 years. They played in full their superb debut album ‘Thunder Lighting Strike’ with other tunes interspersed in their set.           

As a postscript I have managed to obtain some degree of numerical symmetry as New Century Hall was the actual 150th Manchester venue that I had visited.                                                                                                                                                         

Preston Venue 60 The Ferret – Part 3

If you walk to the back of the Preston Ferret there is a well utilised beer garden, where you can seek some quiet solace and grab some air in the gaps between bands. In a spot just before you head outside there was for a spell the traditional cramped pub pool table.

The Ferret beer garden. Image Credit visitpreston.com

In November 2012 after seeing an underwhelming Eddie and the Hot Rods gig at the Continental I witnessed Bobbie Peru for whom the driving force is Bert Genovese. He originated from Connecticut but is now based in Manchester. Next on the list was False Flag who supported Piatcions. The main band were from Domodossola in Italy and originally named Thee Piatcions, they provided some enjoyable psych infused shoegaze but sadly only ever produced one single EP.

In March 2013 I attended my mate Jez Catlow’s 50th birthday shindig where he played sets from his three bands in Strettles next door. During breaks in those sets we wandered the 20 yards to the Ferret and saw local bands The Escobars and Binary. The same month after a Nine Black Alps gig at Preston Blitz I witnessed the bruising punk of Beard of Wolves, a two-piece from Wolverhampton who wore pig masks on stage. They memorably described their sound ‘as getting beaten by a meth addled Scarlet Johansen’ and unsurprisingly imploded for ever in 2014.

Beard of Wolves. Image Credit thrashhits.com

In May 2013 I saw Dave Clark and the Stones who proceeded Orphan Boy from Grimsby. The latter combo split in 2015 but reformed in 2022 and seem to be still active on the gig circuit. The following week I saw again The Chapman Family alongside Rook and the Ravens who feature the Fay brothers in their lineup. Also on that bill were Brassic and The Laze who evolved from a sludge outfit called Doom Cow. For a three-year period, The Laze had their own Valhalla club night at Liverpool Zanzibar’s club and their sound was heavily influenced by Frank Zappa.In August 2013, I saw the Escobars for a second time alongside the Locals.

A couple of months later I saw Deadwood Dog’s first headline set across the road at 53 Degrees. After the Dog’s show I sallied over to the Ferret and continued the canine theme by catching the scuzzy grunge sounds of Cat Called Dog. They must surely or at least subconsciously derive their name from Cat Deeley’s character Cat the Dog from SMTV Live which used to salve my hangover on Saturday mornings in the late 1990’s!

My first appearance of 2014 involved local combo The Kausters who were supported by Local Girls. Also on the bill was Matthew Cogley who performed solo but also doubled as the guitarist and singer with Chorley band Failsafe. His band once appeared on an episode in the third series of the successful Inbetweeners TV series and appeared at the famous South by Southwest festival in 2010. There is however a desperately sad postscript in that he subsequently died whilst on a trip to Belfast on New Years Day 2015 at the tender age of 30.

Later that month I saw the quirky four-piece Hello Bamboo. Soon after I saw an absolute belter of a show when Massive Wagons who are a rock band from Lancaster hit the stage. They reminded me of the Darkness in a good way and were terrific fun and incited a febrile audience reaction. Since that gig they have had a steady but exponential rise with support slots with Status Quo and Ugly Kid Joe prior to two individual headline tours and a top ten UK position with their ‘House of Noise’ album released during the pandemic.

Massive Wagons. Image Credit planetradio.co.uk

Next up was some soulful folk from Bill Orrick followed by some reggae rock crossover vibes from Conscious Collective. In November 2014 it was Moon and the Beams with their self-described slightly-delic rock who supported Mothertongue who provided some prog rock sounds. The final show of 2014 was a four-piece from Leeds called Clay who revolved around the nucleus of the Harvey brothers. The main band that night was Avalanche Party who provided some gritty garage punk and they hailed from the windswept ‘Wuthering Heights’ North Yorkshire moors. 

After my first exposure to the delightful Lovely Eggs at the Continental in March 2015 we decamped to the Ferret to catch some ska punk with Honour Roots and some prog with Jagwar. Next up was Nikki and the Styx (not the Motley Crue bassist) who supported local glam rockers Dragstrip Junkies whose members had the evocative names of Adam Wired, Johnny Rocker and Paul Wasted. A double bill followed with Monster as Humans, who reminded me of Aerogramme, preceding Midas Fall. The main band being a Scottish female duo who had gothic tones.