Tag: The Pretenders

Liverpool Venues 28 to 30

I am starting this week with a recent addition within the Mathew Street Cavern Quarter, namely Liverpool Temple Tavern. The hostelry initially opened its doors in June 2025 taking over the old Reiss store that was located there previously. They are owned by local independent Pub Invest Group who also hold the reins on forty other sites in the city including the nearby Erics and Rubber Soul.

It is split over two floors with grand interiors and comes complete with outdoor tables for those ‘summer nights’. Music is featured at various points during the week under the banner of Trad sessions and on my one foray I saw a local artist called Steve performing.

Temple Tavern. Image Credit liverpoolecho.co.uk

I now return to the Sounds of the City Festival I attended in May 2025 where our next port of call was the Jacaranda on Slater Street (known locally as the Jac). It was opened in 1958 by a forward thinking geezer called Allan Williams who leased an old watch repair shop and then transformed it into a coffee bar. It provided a stage for fledgling local bands and was a key player in the rise of Merseybeat in the 1960’s.

Four young scamps named John Lennon, Stuart Sutcliffe, George Harrison and Paul McCartney were regular visitors and were called The Silver Beetles. The first two named paid for some rehearsal space by painting murals in the cellar, which unsurprisingly remain to this day.

The venue also hosted the first ever Beatles performance in August 1960 where they played as a five-piece for 2.5 hours with the addition of Pete Best. They had to improvise microphone stands by utilising broom handles held aloft by fans. Their reward was to be paid with beans on toast and Coca-Cola, and they proceeded to deputise for the regular house band the Royal Caribbean Steel Band every Monday night.  

Jacaranda Beatles wall. Image Credit beatlesstory.com

The afore mentioned owner of the establishment secured their first tour to Hamburg also in 1960, where they actually set off from outside the Jacaranda in Mr Wiliiam’s green Austin van. He also introduced them to Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) who was a club regular and at that stage a drummer for Rory Storm & The Hurricanes.

Cynthia Lennon cites that John completed the lyrics to ‘One After 909’ song in the venue, the song then later reappeared on the Let It Be album. Allan Williams was invited to those album recording sessions, and in the footage, John is heard to say ‘Where do you think you are? The Jacaranda?’ They parted ways after that with Brian Epstein taking over the management reins, and the rest as they say is history.    

Fast forward then to the mid-1990’s and the place was literally on its knees and in a derelict state. The new owner Graham Stanley restored it but in the upgrades was considerate of its history.

In 2018 he also launched two related record shops, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the original opening. One was based within the original building and the other Jacaranda Baltic located nearer to the waterfront. In one of the branches, he managed to purloin a 1948 voice-o-graph booth, only one of four working versions that exist in the world. Many album launches have taken place there including Foals, Stereophonics, Wunderhorse and The Pretenders.  In 2024 a blue plaque was installed based on its Beatles connection.  

Upon entry you find yourself in the homely Jacaranda Ground Floor Bar where we saw a local singer called Freddie performing. At the top end of the large room there are steps that take you down to the main venue of Liverpool Jacaranda. It has a 400 capacity, and they have live music every night and like Cinderella morphs in another mode at the midnight hour at the weekends, with free live shows, namely Indie Rock Circus on Fridays and Rock N Roll Circus on Saturdays. The festivities are completed with open mic events on the Sunday.

The Jacaranda. Image Credit Liverpool Echo.

However, this is where I discovered one of the key challenges of this festival, even during an early afternoon slot, which was the fact that the small cellar venues were liable to fill out very quickly.

So, I had a new novel position of watching from halfway down the stairs and peering through with my nose against the glass and a muted sound travelling through the pane. But as I would arbitrate in my one man ‘gig VAR’ meetings, they all count! What I could see but only partially hear was some energetic folk sounds from Sair, who I can only obtain sketchy details about, but I think derive from Leeds.

2023 Gigs – Part 1

Continuing the theme of previous years, I will now cover the 2023 gigs attended at venues already reviewed in previous blogs. Because I am sure you are desperate to know lets firstly cover the numbers bit! It turned out to be a record breaking year in that I attended 128 gigs in total which also encompassed 70 new venues.

So, I shall start with the familiar haunt of Manchester Academy 2 and cover my 41st and 42nd visits to that venue. In the cold depths of mid-winter in January Marcus and I headed there to witness the Delgados who are a four-piece band from Glasgow who produce some imaginative music. They formed in 1994 before disbanding in 2005 and then subsequently reformed in 2022 hence this comeback tour.

The Delgados. Image Credit nme.com

I had seen them once before on our honeymoon at Dublin Mean Fiddler in 1998 where they were on an excellent double bill with Nottingham’s Six By Seven. I thoroughly enjoyed their current incarnation as they cut an engaging presence on stage in front of a responsive crowd just glad to witness them back on the gig circuit and their tour culminated with a date in their home city.

The other attendance to Academy 2 also involved a further lengthy gap from my first sighting, in this case 20 years and one week exactly from when I witnessed the Northern Irish combo Therapy? at Preston Mill. Now to be fair I have always been fairly ambivalent about this band and their show on the night unfortunately didn’t alter my viewpoint.  

Prior to the gig there was an obligatory visit to the nearby mecca Manchester Big Hands where they periodically have live bands playing at the end of the room. That night I encountered a noisy Warrington psych rock band called Pray for Mojo who earlier in the year had graced the stage at Manchester Psych Fest. In 2022, they had released their debut album titled ‘Welcome to Mojopia’. They were supported by Swamp Kids.  

I shall now return to the Academy complex with a visit to Manchester Club Academy with the more than welcome return of the Raveonettes. The Copenhagen duo of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo were back on the circuit after a 4 year sabbatical. They were in fine form and played a greatest hits set with my personal highlight being one of their early singles ‘That Great Love Sound’. They were supported by local noiseniks Dr Dr.   

The Raveonettes. Image Credit discogs

Prior to night one of my Mogwai triple bill (over four nights and two cities) Gill and I grabbed a table and had an aperitif in the Manchester Blues Kitchen Bar. The act on stage whilst we primed ourselves for the upcoming aural assault were called Cry Wolf.   

The next gig derived from my very learned musical twitter (I still call it twitter!) pal @parramaterial who recommended Black Doldrums on their latest tour that included a date at Manchester Gullivers. Thus, the troops were enlisted and four of us popped over to have a gander and they were wholly worthy of the effort. Black Doldrums are a North London trio who released their debut album ‘Dead Awake’ in 2022 and they created a hugely enjoyable psych shoegaze cacophony on the night.

Black Doldrums. Image Credit louderthanwar.com

In June I had a foray over to Manchester Didsbury Park Green for the summer festival where a lass called Sally Smith was playing.  The following week another twitter recommendation resulting in four of us attending Manchester Yes Pink Room to watch Screaming Females. Their driving force was Marissa Paternoster who initially formed the band in 2005 at a high school in New Jersey.

Obscure fact time, she was referenced as the 77th greatest guitarist of all time in the Spin magazine in 2012. They released eight albums in total, all on the terrifically named Don Giovanni record label. I happened to catch them and their very decent stagecraft on their final ever tour as they subsequently broke up later in the year. 

The next two gigs to cover took place at Manchester Ritz where Tony Dewhurst, Rick Clegg, Barry Jury and I (Gang of Four) went to watch the Gang of Four who entertained with their angular post-punk sound. In October we managed to purchase tickets to see the Pretenders and the eternally youthful Chrissie Hynde. Unusually, on arrival the queue snaked back to beyond the Sainsburys on the corner, but we managed to enter the establishment just in time for their excellent show and her voice still sounds terrific. She dedicated one song to Johnny Marr, who was in the audience watching on his birthday.