Tag: Warren Ellis

Manchester Venue 129 – Cathedral

In 1215, Manchester Cathedral was built in the centre of the city with additions to the original design being built at periodic intervals over the next three centuries. It survived damage in the Civil War, the IRA bombing in 1996 and the Second World War, the latter causing extensive destruction that required a further 20 years to restore. Following the Arena bombing in May 2017 the Glade of Light memorial was built outside to commemorate the victims. The church is currently one of the fifteen Grade I listed buildings in Manchester and is situated behind the famous Sinclair’s Oyster Bar.

Manchester Cathedral. Image Credit hoteles.com

In the last 15 years the Cathedral has branched out and begun to showcase live music. My first attendance there was in 2012 where I encountered my pal Rick Clegg and his daughter Charlotte on the train over as they were heading on to an alternate Vaccines gig at Manchester Ritz. We parlayed in the pub over a couple of scoops and then headed separate ways.

A couple of years earlier I had attended my debut ecclesiastical event at St Phillips Church in Salford when watching Wooden Shjips. This was a similar set up with slightly more challenges in regard to viewing the stage due to the proliferation of pillars.

The band performing was Dirty Three, an Australian instrumental rock band I had seen once previously 12 years earlier. Their first ever gig took place on ANZAC Day on 25th April 1992 where Warren Ellis utilised a guitar pick up to his violin which created their trademark feedback driven sound which is a sight to behold when they are in their full flow of 10 minute opuses.

Dirty Three. Image Credit fromthearchives.com

Warren was born in Ballarat, Victoria, coincidentally a town Gill and I stayed in when we visited Australia, and he has also been a dual member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since 1994.  They are a terrific and thunderous live act, and on the night, the journalist/musician John Robb was also in attendance, with whom I had a decent chat.  

The second and currently latest visit was as part of the Manchester Dot to Dot festival in 2016. As ever, my gig ‘addiction’ resulted in a co-ordinated effort to attend all of the twenty geographically disparate city centre venues during the day, which was a logistical challenge.

Never one who has been able to embrace Gordon Gekko’s ethos of ‘lunch is for wimps’; a food stop was taken at the excellent chippy that used to be located at the city end of Oldham Street. This was immediately prior to heading over to the Cathedral, which for the record was number eleven on the venue hit list. The fish and chips were still being munched as I stood outside, and I could hear the band ending their set.

My instant thoughts were that I had made a major tactical error, and this would forever be classed as a ‘missed gig’, but I wandered in any way to pray for a miracle! Due to the nature of the event, there was very strict time periods allocated to each set, but remarkably in this case the gig gods were smiled benignly on me as the band returned to the stage for an unprecedented encore of one additional song.

The act on stage was Sundara Karma, who are an indie band from Reading. I had caught them very early in their career as they had only formed the previous year and were just at that stage leaving secondary school and it was five years prior to releasing their debut album ‘Youth is Only Ever Fun in Retrospect’. They were obviously acquiring some hype as they incited a very enthusiastic crowd reaction. With the near miss thus averted I progressed on to achieve the full twenty venues, ending the gig quest in Manchester Texture in the Northern Quarter.  

Sundara Karma. Image Credit schonmagazine.com

Gill and I had tickets for one other event there which was to see Low in April 2022 however we ended up being double booked so therefore could not attend. This was seven months before Mimi Parker’s tragic untimely death leaving me with memories of previous great Low shows I had been fortunate to witness, particularly at Manchester Hop and Grape and Lancaster Library.

Manchester Venue 16 Academy 3 – Part 1

Within the Manchester University complex on the second floor lies Manchester Academy 3. For those with longer memories it was previously known as the Hop and Grape and the venue opened in the 60’s.

The original layout was very cosy with an entrance to the left of the bar, in later years they expanded the venue marginally with an entrance round the back of the bar. The capacity is 470 and it is my favourite of all the four Academy venues as it remains an intimate size and there is a good view from all vantage points.

My first visit in October 99 was to see Guided by Voices. They are a legendary band from Dayton, Ohio and formed in 1983 with the ever-present lead singer Robert Pollard. They are highly prolific recording artists and despite a couple of hiatuses they have just produced their 30th album and they have been known to play 4 hour shows mirroring the length of some Bruce Springsteen and E-Street band gigs.   

They received regular airplay on college radio which was the route REM traversed when progressing into the limelight. They flirted with fame when appearing in the Strokes ‘Someday’ video. Nobody sounds quite like them and ‘Under the Bushes Under the Stars’ is a fabulous album and comes recommended.  

Unfortunately, the sound system in the venue didn’t assist on the night and despite moments of brilliance they struggled to convert their recorded output to the live setting, and it remains the only time I got to see them on stage.

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Guided by Voices ‘Under the Bushes Under the Stars album cover. Image Credit colouredvinylrecords.com

They were ably supported by Beulah from San Francisco who created a sunny West Coast vibe and were excellent. Again, I only saw them once and they disbanded in 2004.

My next appearance was in May 2000 to see Grandaddy. They had first appeared on my radar when I was converted to them by their ‘AM180’ track featured on a Q magazine mixtape.

They had their own unique sound resultant in part by the incorporation of some homemade instruments and their wonky Neil Young beauty was superb live. A good time was had by all to the extent that I was somewhat hungover when performing my ‘Jimmy the Cat’ goalkeeper duties the following afternoon for the works football team.

Four months after that I saw the Melbourne instrumental trio Dirty Three. They were fronted by a charismatic Warren Ellis who had an interesting back story as a classically trained violinist, school teacher and a busker around Europe.

He proceeded to do a rambling but engaging monologue prior to each track and then turned his back at the commencement of each song and the band then created a cacophonous racket in an odd rock/jazz fusion. They were great fun and the nearest loose comparison could be Arcade Fire without any lyrics!  

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Dirty Three in full flow. Image Credit Clash

On 24/03/01 I went to see the Minnesota based Low for the first time. In my opinion, they have produced one of the three best festive songs. Their ‘Just Like Christmas’ sits alongside that lesser heard Pogues track and ‘Christmas Song’ by Joy Zipper.

They are quantified in the ‘slowcore’ genre and can be a tad too maudlin for some, but I loved their hushed plaintive harmonies and the exceedingly quiet respectful audience added to my considerable enjoyment of the gig.  

On 09/06/01 we witnessed Rocket from the Crypt who weren’t as sharp as previous stellar performances. We had some significant train trauma on the return journey and didn’t land home until 4.07am.

In March 2002 we saw a woeful band called Vex Red from Aldershot. I just checked their website and am suitably astonished they are still on the circuit. Paul Bruzzese was at a gig downstairs so we left before the end of the set and endeavoured to shoehorn our way into the Tomahawk gig in the venue downstairs without success!