Preston Venue 52 Moor Park – Part 1

Somewhat remarkably I have arrived at the door of my 200th (and 201st) blog so I cogitated long and hard about to what to cover in this particular piece and eventually decided to write about what was arguably Preston’s biggest ever music event in terms of national exposure in my lifetime.    

On returning from a holiday in early 2007 we were informed that astonishingly the Radio 1 Big Weekend was to be held in the sleepy backwater of Preston in May 2007, and not only that but the venue chosen was Preston Moor Park, a ten-minute bumble from where I lived at that time. This event was Europe’s biggest free ticketed event, with 35k punters in attendance over the two days.

   Moor Park with an outdoor stage in approximately 1955. Image Credit flickr.com

Moor Park is Preston’s largest and oldest park. It was the site of the Battle of Preston in 1648 where there was a four-hour scrap between the New Model Army, commanded by Oliver Cromwell (commemorated in song by Elvis Costello) and the Royalist and the Scots. Horse racing was held there annually between 1736 and 1833, and there is still in place the stone that was the starting point for the races.

Also, in 1833 it was rebadged as Moor Park and the original Serpentine Lake and ‘Ladies Walk’ (Moor Park Avenue) remain to this day. Preston North End began their existence initially as a cricket club on the park before changing over to football and moving location onto the other side of Deepdale Road.

During the Great War, it was utilised as a hospital and in the Second World War as a prisoner of war camp. The observatory was installed in 1927 just before a rare occurrence of a total eclipse in that year.

Moor Park with Deepdale in the background. Image Credit blogpreston.co.uk

There was an open-air baths in existence there until the early 1970’s, just before my time though I do recall visiting the other open-air baths in Haslam Park across town before that closed, though from memory the water was brutally cold! I do also remember they had a decent pitch and putt golf course in the middle part of Moor Park in the 1980’s.  

The first challenge was to purloin a ticket for the Radio 1 shindig, and they did thankfully allocate a vast proportion to local postcodes. After submitting applications from several addresses (with prior agreement!) I was notified we had been allocated two tickets for the Sunday bill, though confirmation was only received ten days before the event. The tickets were free though that did not stop many greedy charlatans trying to sell them at hugely inflated prices, before thankfully the sites were shut down!

It was obviously broadcast live on Radio 1, and coverage was also available on BBC Three, with Edith Bowman, Jo Whiley and Chris Moyles amongst others in attendance. There was a huge encouragement for attendees to use public transport as there is very limited parking facilities in that area, two separate park and rides schemes were set up to assist in this venture.   

There were many Fringe events with local bands playing at the Mad Ferret, 53 Degrees, Bitter Suite, Kolor Bar and the Venue. They featured acts such as Jelly’s Last Jam, King Casanova, How’s My Pop and Redwings who had recently had a support slot with the Subways.

King Casanova playing Oxjam in Preston in 2007. Image Credit flickr.com

On the Saturday there was an exciting vibe as festival goers walked past the end of my road and I could hear the music from the bands in the distance. My pal Rick Clegg was in attendance and acts playing that day included Razorlight, Kasabian, The Gossip, Biffy Clyro, CSS, Scissor Sisters and LCD Soundsystem.

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.