Tag: The Rolling Stones

Manchester Venue 192 – Palace Theatre

As you stride down the hill from Oxford Road train station you reach the junction of Oxford Road and Whitworth Street where Manchester Palace Theatre is located, situated across the road from the Refuge Bar. The grand old building designed by architect Alfred Darbyshire at a princely cost of £40,500 first opened its doors in 1891, and at that stage was known locally as the ‘Grand Old Lady of Oxford Street’, and the sister theatre The Opera House across town on Quay Street are owned by the same company. 

Manchester Palace Theatre. Image Credit ticketsonsale.com

Their first ever production was a ballet version of Cleopatra where they had a seating capacity of 3,675 though that figure has reduced significantly over the years to its current number of 1955. The theatre struggled initially but garnered more success when they had more popular performers playing there. Luminaries such as Lillie Langtry, Charlie Chaplin, Judy Garland, Gracie Fields, Danny Kaye and Laurel and Hardy have graced that very stage.

It had an extensive refurbishment in 1913 and was reopened seven months later by Harry Houdini. It was unfortunately struck directly during the Manchester Blitz of 1940, but then had successful productions of Guys and Dolls, Hamlet and Look Back in Anger running during the 1950’s and 1960’s.

It had a fallow period in the 1970’s and was threatened with closure but the intervention of the Arts Council saved the day. As a result, some further renovations took place before reopening again in 1981 with a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. In 2009 as part of the Manchester International Festival a premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna opera was staged there.

Musicians to have performed there include the Platters, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Smiths, Johnny Cash, Damon Albarn, and the indefatigable Sparks were astonishingly playing there back in October 1975!

Sparks. Image Credit pinterest.com

The current layout contains three tiers of seating in the Stalls, Circle and Grand Tier. On our first visit in the early 1990’s we were sat in the vertigo inducing cramped seats ‘in the Gods’ watching West Side Story where we had a literal vertical view of the stage, but lessons were learned and never again have I ventured back up there! There are a plethora of amenities including the appropriately named Stage Door Bar and the whole venue is available to hire if you had the urge to do so!

I have cogitated long and hard regarding what may constitute a gig and have surmised (at least in my own head!) that in the scenario where bands are essentially part of the story of the theatre production that criteria is fulfilled.  

Thus, in September 2022, Gill and I had an outstanding credit note from previous shows that were cancelled during the pandemic so we utilised that in purchasing tickets to go and see the longstanding production of Ben Elton’s We Will Rock You, which had originally opened in the West End in 2002.

For the uninitiated the show was about the band Queen, and it is apparently classified under the category of a Jukebox musical, for which the definition is that it contains an abundance of pre-existing well known popular tunes, instead of songs being written specifically for the musical. Despite all that, the show personally didn’t work for me, and I found it all rather disappointing.

On the converse side, the other musical School of Rock that we saw earlier in that year was on a completely different level. It was an adaption of the original Richard Linklater movie released in 2003, which is an excellent feel good movie with a starring role for the effervescent Jack Black. Jack himself is a talented musician and was one half of Tenacious D who had a big hit with ‘Tribute’ which featured a cameo from Dave Grohl playing Satan.

The movie is based around the premise of Dewey Finn (Jack Black) impersonating a substitute teacher and turning a class of talented kids into a rock band in order to perform at a Battle of Bands contest.

Some of the children have had interesting lives since the movie with Lucas Babin who played lead guitarist Spider going on to be a district attorney in Texas. Miranda Cosgrove who was the agent Summer Hathaway was at the age of 19 in 2012 the highest paid child actor and has also released a few records herself.

Letter to Brezhnev. Image Credit imdb.com

There was also Caitlin Hale and Angelo Massagli who played classmates Marta and Frankie who met years later and subsequently got married 22 years after the original movie. This also brings to mind the two main actors Alexander Pigg and Peter Firth in the 1985 flick Letter to Brezhnev, who married other people but then later wed each other in 2017. I have recently watched the film again and it certainly stands up to scrutiny and my abiding memory from its initial release was the phrase ‘Kirkby Girls’ being uttered by Margi Clarke in a deep scouse accent!

The theatre show was a faithful reproduction with extra gags included, and the child performers were absolutely superb making it a very fun night. It was topped off perfectly with the show finishing in synchronicity with us able to catch the last train home from the station opposite.     

Glasgow Venue 5 – Hampden Park

My overriding preference of venue would always be the smaller one man and his dog establishments where you are more liable to catch lean and hungry bands on their way up, though very occasionally I have to bite the bullet and attend larger auditoriums and stadiums to be able to see certain special bands who only play at that level. Neil Young is one such act and I first witnessed him in 1987 at the soulless Birmingham NEC, the other two times I watched him were fortunately in festival settings.

The other combo is AC/DC who I am a huge fan of despite them essentially being a two bars blues band at heart, but they do perform it with such volume and aplomb. I first saw them at Manchester MEN Arena in 2001. Their next British tour was eight years later in June 2009, and we dawdled when the tickets were released, and the tour ended up being sold out. The gig gods were smiling on us though when additional tickets were available for the Glasgow Hampden Park date, and we summarily snapped them up.   

Hampden Park. Image Credit urbanrealm.com

The first challenge was to locate a bed for the night as no city centre accommodation was available, thus resulting in our digs being a train ride and a further mile walk away (it is always further away than it looks on the map!). We visited a couple of bars down Stockwell Street near the River Clyde and the city’s pubs were highly populated as 52k gig goers were in town.

They were unsurprisingly playing AC/DC on the jukebox in the Scotia Bar, and we then frequented the Clutha & Victoria Bar, the pub where four years later there was the horrendous police helicopter crash resulting in ten fatalities. Thankfully the establishment was rebuilt and is thriving again.

Clutha and Victoria Bar. Image Credit blogspot.com

As the stadium was about three miles out of town, we hailed a taxi, which due to the heavy traffic could only reach the outskirts of the arena area. On disembarking the cab, I suddenly had an overwhelming crippling urge to spend a penny, I am sure you have all been there! I picked up pace, but the ground never seemed to arrive and then somewhat inevitably we discovered our entry gate was on the far side of the stadium. Finally, access to the venue was achieved and mission accomplished to enable me to actually think clearly again.     

The original Hampden Park was built in 1873, taking its name from the nearby Hampden Terrace and the first international match there in 1878 was a 7-2 win over England. In 1883, the national stadium was moved a few hundred metres east and then again further south in 1903 to its current site, always with the same name. The original site is now covered by railway lines.

The current Hampden (Pairc Hampden in Gaelic) has a population of 51,866 and over its timeline there has been a plethora of different sports played there including rugby union, athletics, tennis, baseball, speedway, boxing and American football. The first music concert was Genesis and Paul Young in 1987 and U2, Bruce Springsteen and Rolling Stones have graced the stage there.    

Having booked late tickets, we expected to be in a corner or in the gods, but we were astonished to discover terrific centre stage seats with a superb vantage. The Subways were supporting and did a sterling job with their high-octane performance; however, they were always to be outdone by the main act as they possessed their own individual sound system.

AC/DC opened with a thunderously loud two-minute cheeky video before launching into their current single ‘Rock N Roll Train’ off the Black Ice album, the whole sold out place literally erupted. At that very moment I almost saw the benefits of a stadium gig with the shared communal atmosphere, but only almost.

For over half of set, they were spellbindingly good and even at their advanced age were still kicking the butts of many younger wannabe acts. Towards the end there some spinal tap moments, but that is only me being slightly picky. ‘Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be’, ‘Hells Bells’, Dog Eat Dog’, Highway to Hell’ were glorious, with the highlight being ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’.

After we left the stadium there was a claustrophobic passage of old thin alleyways which brought back slightly unpleasant memories of football crowd crushes in the 1980’s and I was glad when we had navigated through that area. We considered catching a train, but local station Mount Pleasant was absolutely packed to the gills, so we undertook the hour walk back into the city.

We had a further drink in the Clutha beer garden as it was a balmy summer’s evening before a late drink in Nice and Sleazy on Sauchiehall Street. The final venue of the day was a Noodle Bar across the road before a cab back to the hotel completed a rather fine day.