Tag: Wedding Present

2024 Gigs – Part 1

After a slow start to the year due to some ill health my numbers then increased exponentially to reach a personal best figure of 143 gigs for 2024. My current total for 2025 suggests I have a decent chance though of surpassing that figure this year. As with all previous annual updates I will cover only the venues that I have already reviewed in previous blogs.

Where shall we start? I guess a good as place as any is the old stalwart Manchester Academy 1. I visited there in February for the 32nd time and as a result also reached another milestone as it was my 100th visit to the entire Academy complex (includes also 42 gigs at Academy 2, 19 at Academy 3 and 7 at Club Academy). My century being achieved a small matter of 36 years and 7 days since my first attendance at Academy 2 in February 1988 to see Wedding Present.

Slowdive. Image Credit NME.

I also had the veritable bonus of finally after a few years of correspondence meeting the music aficionado and musician Andrea for a quick drink prior to the event. The gig itself was my first ever sighting of the now revered shoegazers Slowdive. The band formed in Reading in 1989 and subsequently broke up in 1995 after the release of their third album ‘Pygmalion’. Some of the members formed a splinter group called Mojave 3 before Slowdive reformed for Primavera in 2014 and have since released two albums, the latter ‘Everything is Alive’ achieving a Top Ten placing in several countries.    

The venue was as busy as I have ever witnessed it, and I managed to snuggle into a spot about halfway in on the left-hand side. There was a considerably more youthful crowd than I had anticipated, and it has now become apparent that shoegaze is now being heard by a fresh new generation. The band had a compelling presence, and it was an enjoyably immersive experience.

They were supported by some newer kids on the block, Whitelands, who have been playing since 2017 and had just released their debut album on the legendary Sonic Cathedral record label.  On the night, I also made the inadvertent discovery for the first time of the infinitely quieter upstairs bar!

There was a sojourn in June with my brother-in law Phil to Manchester Old Trafford Cricket Ground as a wingman to see the Foo Fighters on Day 2 of their residency there. We had a couple of scoops prior in Chorlton whilst dodging the rain showers and en route to the ground made a virgin visit to the old Holts brewery pub The Quadrant.

The Quadrant pub. Image Credit flickr.com

There were some painfully slow ticket queues reminding me why I very rarely attend stadium gigs. We sallied about and stood in different spots for their near three hour set. Dave Grohl always cuts a charismatic presence and his swear box was overflowing by the end of the show!

There was a visit to Stockport Rock Salt Café in Moor Top in August where I saw a chap called Eddie performing and just before Christmas, I watched the oddly named Liffey St featuring Eoin Griffin & Mixi Toal at Stockport Cassidy’s in Heaton Moor.

I made another pilgrimage to the Sounds from the Other City festival (SFTOC) in Salford. First port of call was the Manchester Pint Pot Upstairs where I witnessed the Manchester three-piece Shell Company. They had a brooding electronic sound topped off by spoken word poetry from their vocalist Rosebella Allen and have released records that were recorded at the White Hotel venue.

In Manchester Pint Pot Downstairs we could barely scramble through the door to obtain a sighting of Thraa, a Manchester drone duo consisting of Sally Mason and Andi Jackson. They were both in other bands before forming this one and have garnered support slots with Lorelle Meets The Obsolete. They were intriguing as they employed two guitars and threw away traditional song structures to produce shards of sounds, sometimes minimalist and sometimes rather joyously noisy!

Just around the corner in Manchester St Phillips Church we caught a singer called BEATRICE, which I cannot find any information about. Further down the A6 brought you to the vibrant communal area and the Manchester Bexley Square Live Tent where Meme Good were noisily cooking up a storm on the stage. In the nearby fine hostelry Manchester New Oxford, I saw a combo called Fellowship.

St Phillips Church. Image Credit manchesterhistory.net

We then pottered over to the busy hub of Manchester Islington Mill Courtyard where in the outside area alongside the bars and pizza huts, we saw and heard the synth sounds of local musician Sarah Bates. Her career commenced as a solo vocalist and at one stage worked with the legendary producer Nile Rodgers.

Back under the roof in Manchester Islington Mill Mirage Bar we witnessed a portion of Chermonseg’s set. Down the corridor in Manchester Islington Mill Partisan Bar we saw Zolatec who is a drum and bass artist. She was born in Leicester with the name of Ayeshah but is also known under the stage name of Zola Steelpan, reflecting the influence of that particular instrument in her repertoire. She is a festival stalwart and has performed at the Notting Hill Carnival.

Manchester Venues 166 to 167

Directly outside the Manchester Oxford Road station in an old coffee shop and cycle hub they have now opened the Oxford Road Tap which completes the trilogy of tap bars at Manchester stations alongside the already existing Victoria and Piccadilly Tap. I have had one visit thus far to this small tidy craft beer spot where it has a large repurposed National Rail sign and also a live timetable, so you know exactly how much time you have to drain your pint!

Oxford Road Tap. Image Credit uk.news.yahoo.com

Opposite the train station access road and the Palace Theatre you will find the Grade II listed Principal Manchester building, though it is more widely known as the Refuge Assurance building. The Refuge company was founded in 1858 and moved to its Oxford Road location in 1890.

After purchasing the site, they worked with the renowned Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse in designing their new head office, whose previous work included London’s Natural History Museum. The grand ornate high ceiling interior was built in 1895. There were further extensions in 1905 and 1912, the latter incorporating the impressive 220ft baroque clock tower which formed the new main entrance, with clock quarters stylised with a Manchester bee, which is now synonymous with many other contemporary artefacts in the city. The latest incarnation accommodated up to 1900 clerks.

During the Second World War they constructed two air raid shelters in the basement but thankfully avoided any direct hits. The Refuge company relocated to Wilmslow in 1987, the building then becoming Charterhouse Hotel and in 1996 it was renamed as the Palace Hotel. It changed hands again in 2016 with the Manchester Refuge Bar taking over one half of the building.

Refuge Bar. Image Credit we-heart.com

There are many separate spaces in this vast space, and these include the public bar that you encounter immediately upon entry. Behind there is the Dining Room where we have visited once for a very decent Sunday lunch, it is exceedingly popular, and we had to book a couple of months in advance. Next to there is the Winter Garden area and there is additionally the Den and a Private Dining Room which can both be booked with capacities of 80 and 10 respectively.  

I had walked past this building for many years on the way to the station, but it was around 2018, a couple of years after opening, before I finally made a visit to the bar. It is also handy as an alternate though tad expensive venue to contrast the nearby fine grungy pubs and has been utilised prior to late trains and for post Ritz and Gorilla gig drinks.

They have regular DJ’s on there but in April 2024, the day we sampled our Sunday fodder, I was delighted to find that my ‘bonus gig’ banner was flashing as there was a jazz band playing in the main bar.

The aforementioned attached Manchester Principal Hotel (now renamed post-covid as the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel) was subject to an extensive £25m refurbishment in 2016 which resulted in the creation of the largest hotel ballroom in the whole of the Northwest of England. The hotel is alleged to be haunted by a grieving war widow who committed suicide by throwing herself down the staircase from the top floor and this area was only accessible to the menfolk at that time! Room 261 is also to be avoided with reports of the sounds of children playing in the hours of darkness.  

The annual Manchester Literature festival has been in place since 2006 and was built on the legacy of its forerunner the Manchester Poetry festival. It is a two-week multi venue event that occurs every October and also provides a year-round Creative Learning programme which supports the next generation of readers and writers.

Principal Hotel. Image Credit Country and Town House Magazine

One of the selected venues for the 2018 event was the Principal Hotel. Marcus had a spare ticket for an audience with the Wedding Present lead singer Dave Gedge and this took place in one of the numerous function rooms on a Sunday afternoon.

As we exited the lift I ran into Jo Davies (nee Brewer) who was one of the large crew that I used to attend the Raiders/Warehouse indie nightclub with in the early 1990’s. I was a regular there between 1985 and my last attendance on John Dewhurst’s stag do in 2005. I know the next generation of sons and daughters now attend, though I did hear last week from one of those old timers on a recent attendance that one of the DJ’s was playing Taylor Swift, by heck that would never have happened in my day!

Dave was there to talk about a book he had recently penned with the interviewer Richard Houghton called ‘All The Songs Sound The Same’. The theme of the tome was to present 300 Wedding Present stories from fans, friends and band members including one from our current PM Sir Keir Starmer. He then followed the chat by playing acoustic versions of four of the band’s finest tunes.