Tag: Velvet Underground

Gigs from Abroad Part 20 – Alicante

Alicante has always been viewed as a strategic military location and a singular key defence mechanism underpinning this is the existence of the impressive Santa Barbara Castle which was built in the 9th century and to this day still towers over the city. I can personally confirm it is a physically exacting trek up the hill to the castle, especially in baking sunshine! The city has an interesting lineage in that they have chronologically been inhabited by Iberian tribes, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Goths (thought they were peaceful!), Moors and latterly the Spaniards.

Santa Barbara Castle. Image Credit tripkay.com

In the 1960’s it began to generate the first inklings of a future tourist destination, and the city was transformed accordingly. Other nearby resorts followed suit, including Benidorm and the success of this new venture was assisted by the closure of the old Rabasa airfield and the corresponding building of the new modern El Altet Airport. Famous people from the city include the tennis players David Ferrer and Alex de Minaur and the black metal band Nahemah.

In 2018, to commemorate our fifty years on this earth, Gill and I decided to undertake two trips around our individual birthdays and on my milestone we decided on a jaunt to Alicante. I took a liking to the city as similar to Malaga it was a bustling modern city with a beach, promenades, marina area and the aforementioned castle.

We found some decent restaurants and a plethora of bars. On my actual birthday we had a leisurely lunch, and wouldn’t you just know it I had lined up a gig for the evening! We headed into what resembled the ‘Northern Quarter’ in the Southern area of the city and our ultimate destination was Alicante Sala Stereo.

On our first pass we thought the venue was closed but Gill reassured me that they would be operating on chilled European hours, and she was absolutely correct as it didn’t open its doors until around 10pm. When there is no live music on, it runs solely as a nightclub and is open between the quite frankly insane hours of 2.30am to 8.30am!   

Sala Stereo. Image Credit youtube.com

I cannot find much history of the venue, but it appears to be still thriving today and on music nights they generally concentrate on homespun acts. It was a homely brightly lit venue with a friendly local crowd. The capacity was 500 and they had the excellent novel touch of beer bottle holders on the side walls to safely house your ice-cold beverage. 

The initial act was a decent singer from Valencia called Sienna followed by a local musician called Olivia. The clock kept ticking and moved into the day after my birthday and still we waited for the main band. They finally pottered on stage around 1am which places it squarely in my latest ever gigs lists alongside Goldblade at Preston Aqualenium and Jesus and Mary Chain at Preston Clouds in 1985, the latter now feels like it was in an earlier lifetime!

The headliners El Mato a Un Policia Motorizado, also known as EMAUPM or El Mato who were created in La Plata in Argentina. Their unusual name derives from a line in a 1987 Spanish movie R.O.T.O.R and translates literally as ‘that boy just killed a motorcycle cop’.  They formed in 2003, and the driving force of the five-piece band is the vocalist Santiago ‘Motorizado’ and they have released five albums with their latest being ‘Super Terror’ in 2023.

El Mato a Un Policia Motorizado. Image Credit diariohoy.net

They were also chosen to contribute a cover of ‘Slippery People’ for a fortieth anniversary tribute album of Talking Heads ‘Stop Making Sense’ alongside artists such as Miley Cyrus, Lorde and Paramore. The record then debuted at the top of the Billboard Compilation Albums chart in August 2024.

The band cite their musical influences as Pixies, Sonic Youth and Velvet Underground amongst others, unfortunately they did not live up to that envisaged sound and to be honest they were a tad limp. Given the late hour I wasn’t too disappointed at this development as after a couple of tracks it allowed us to shuffle out and head back to our digs. On the walk back the town was just beginning to boot up into the busier hours of its nightlife. The following evening, we attended a tapas restaurant called Alicante El Rincon de Alma and saw a local singer called Juan.

Liverpool Venue 1 – The Royal Court

Mainly due to unreliable transport links I have been an irregular visitor to Liverpool for gigs though I have visited many times with work. I have always found Liverpool to be a vibrant and interesting place to frequent.

My first visit on a train was a mistake as for only the second time in my life I boarded the wrong train, not my fault honestly guv, and of course this error was compounded on arrival at Lime St Station by the fact that I missed the hourly train back to Preston by a wafer-thin margin of 2 minutes!

Coincidentally I was on Lime St station yesterday travelling back after a dramatic day at the cricket watching Lancashire at the quaint Aigburth ground. I have once caught the ferry across the Mersey and yes, they do play that track but thankfully only a 10 second excerpt! I have also attended the Grand National twice without finding the winner.

I never attended the infamous Eric’s venue thus my first two Liverpool gigs were at the Royal Court Theatre in Roe Street in the city centre which is very close to Lime St station. The current Royal Court was built in 1938 in an Art Deco style, and it was fortunate to survive the subsequent blitz. It is noteworthy for being the home of the stage debuts of Richard Burton and Judi Dench in the 1950’s.

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Liverpool Royal Court building. Image Credit Liverpool Echo

It gained Grade II status in 1990 and was taken over by Rawhide Comedy Club in 2005 and it is still operational today producing comedy skit performances with titles such as Little Scouse on the Prairie.

In the 1980’s it was utilised as a music venue and the likes of Rage Against the Machine and David Bowie graced the stage. The three levels of Stalls, Grand Circle and Balcony equated to a capacity of 1186, and it was a grand old venue. I unsurprisingly frequented the cheap ‘seats’ of standing in the mosh pit.

My first visit was on 2nd May 1989, and we commuted there in John Dewhurst’s work van. I recall it was a scrum at the bar prior to the Pixies hitting the stage at 9.15pm. the place was about half full and they had just released their third album ‘Doolittle’.

As ever with the Pixies, it was a vibrant tropically hot mosh pit and I recall them playing ‘River Euphrates’, ‘Mr Grieves, ‘Debaser’ and ‘Monkey Goes to Heaven’. My two highlights were the contrasting ‘Hey’ and the primal ‘Tame’ replete with Black Francis screaming like a banshee! They did an hour set and we had a debrief in a pub in Ormskirk on the way home.

My second and final visit was 19 days later to see REM, and it was on a very warm Sunday evening. The daytime was a combination of sunbathing and of Uncle George and I buying some tickets for an upcoming PNE v Port Vale play off which we unsurprisingly lost! 

We travelled over in George’s trusty yellow Cavalier. On arrival in Liverpool, we landed in an Irish pub near the station and were subject to some sustained cadging from a fellow punter. This cadging theme continued in the next pub, and we made a sensible decision to head into the venue.

REM took to the stage at 9pm. It was an early tour for them, and they were a country mile away from the polished article you saw a decade later, as Michael Stipe was a particularly shy performer at that juncture, but he still oozed charisma. He resembled an eccentric David Byrne and at times was muttering away into a loudspeaker about diverse subjects of CND and Greenpeace.

Michael Stipe in loudspeaker mode. Image Credit Pat Papertown 2

They opened with ‘Pop Song 89’ and I recall them playing ‘Disturbance at the Heron House’, ‘Orange Crush’ and ‘World Leader Pretend’. He then somewhat ironically introduced ‘It’s the End of the World as we Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ as the best song ever written. They performed two encores encompassing eight tracks including ‘Stand’ and ‘Finest Worksong’ and finished with a cover of Velvet Underground ‘After Hours’.

On the commute out of the city, we were very nearly side swiped by a speeding cop car! I recall 5 Live had commentary on a Nigel Benn v Michael Watson boxing match prior to stopping to refuel in Ormskirk with a Chinese takeaway. Just around New Longton, outside Preston, an REM track came on the radio to top of a fine night.

A postscript here is that for the first 77 gigs I attended I used to write a full review of the entire minutiae of the night and these two Liverpool gigs have finally exhausted this archive.