Tag: White Stripes

Leeds Venues 2 and 3

Underneath the arches on Swinegate near the main train station you would find Leeds Cockpit. It was formerly the Cock of the North pub before opening as a music/club venue in 1994. After a twenty-year spell, it closed in 2014 due to the low number of punters attending club nights, those very club nights subsequently relocating across town to the Key Club.

Luminaries such as Amy Winehouse, White Stripes, and hometown boys the Kaiser Chiefs treaded the boards there and the Fall once played a famous gig were the ever-obstreperous Mark E Smith refused to undertake an encore and sent out the roadies instead to play three more tracks.

There were three venues located inside, with the main room (capacity 500) being the location I have visited twice. The other rooms had capacities of 250 and 125 respectively.  It was a grungy atmospheric venue with its industrial type of location by the railway tracks and I liked it a lot and was mournful when I heard it had closed its doors for the last time.

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Leeds Cockpit. Image Credit BBC.

My first visit was on a warm Friday night in May 2003 to see Mogwai. We had a good mulch around a suite of city centre pubs ranging from smooth wine bars to Barnsley Bitter type alehouses, prior to heading over to the venue.

Mogwai produced a stellar set finishing with ‘2 Rights Make 1 Wrong’ and ‘My Father, My King’ and the encore contained a magnificent ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’. We headed back on the Saturday arriving home just in time to watch Southampton narrowly lose the Cup Final to Arsenal.

My second visit was 11 years later within the remit of our first encounter with the Live at Leeds multi-venue event. We made a last-minute decision to attend the shindig so could only obtain a hotel in the suburbs which necessitated a bus ride into town and a taxi ride home. We did forward plan though to ensure we had some emergency crunch creams waiting for us when we landed back at our digs.  

The first band we witnessed were Darlia, who despite having a fundamental flaw of being from Blackpool were rather enjoyable. They formed in 2013 and despite some considerable press attention and a slot on the NME awards tour they appear to have been on a sabbatical since 2017.  

The second act was a four-piece post punk band from Essex called The Bohicas who garnered support slots with Franz Ferdinand but subsequently disbanded in 2016. Looking back now at the listings for the day I have noted that a young Wolf Alice played the venue later that evening, but as there were so many other venues to go and visit, we moved on at that point.

The Escobar in the centre of the city was arguably two separate areas with a Mexican cantina restaurant upstairs, with a dingy bar and live music room upstairs. In March 2013 Gill and I were away for a weekend in Leeds where we stumbled upon this bar and discovered that there were a couple of bands on.   

 

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Leeds Escobar. Image Credit leedsbeer.info

The main band was The Vendettas, an energetic Leeds based three-piece who I would quantify as garage mod revivalists replete with the requisite garb including the traditional parkas. They were supported on the night by 54 Knockout.

Nottingham Venues 26 to 29

Situated bang in the centre of town is Nottingham Bodega (previously known as the Bodega Social) opposite the Pit and Pendulum pub on Pelham Street. The venue opened in 1999 and comprises of a small welcoming venue upstairs with a capacity of 200 and a bar area downstairs. In their embryonic days they welcomed very early performances by the likes of White Stripes and the Strokes, and the venue is still going strong over 20 years later.

My first visit there was in 2006 to see Quasi, an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon comprising of an ex-spouse couple. Their sound was all too angular and obtuse and didn’t move me at all in anyway. They were supported by a band called Home Science. In 2009 I saw a couple of local bands runWALK! and Shapes there.

In April 2010 the plan was to complete a double header of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club dates as the gig four days before at Manchester Ritz was to be followed by a further date at Nottingham Rock City. However, via a phone call en route I was informed that the second date had been cancelled at short notice which was rather deflating at the time.

Thus, an alternate gig needed to be sourced and the Paddingtons fitted the bill. They were a rock band from Hull and produced a fine set and were supported by the Jet Boys.

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The Bodega venue. Image Credit Pollstar.

My next gig there a year later was to see the local shoe gaze legends Spotlight Kid who I had first seen a couple of years earlier and they produced another stellar and blissfully noisy performance. Shortly after that they headed over to my patch to play the Mad Ferret in Preston, but I was unfortunately unavailable for that gig. My final gig there was to see a decent New York punk band called the Skaters.

As previously alluded the Nottingham Bodega Ground Floor was primarily the main bar however, they periodically had acoustic gigs there under the Hockley Hustle banner. On the 2007 shindig I saw Chris Macdonald and a Band Called Sarah and on the 2009 edition I witnessed Ali Powers, Sian Alexandria and the quaintly named Ben Playford and the Spooky Boots.

In April 2012 in a decent pub called the Tap and Tumbler on Wollaton Street we saw Mansfield’s finest rock covers band called Three-Legged Cat.

The Arboretum is a large welcoming green area above Forest Fields alongside the tram line into town. There used to be a pub called the Arboretum on the fringes which we frequented on sunny days at the end of last century.

It was known as the ‘pub in the park’ and was highly popular with students from the nearby Trent Polytechnic (now Nottingham Trent University). It suffered two significant fires, one in 1965 and the second in 2006 was the death knell to the pub leading to its demolition. The Arboretum area has been on the national news this week for all the wrong reasons with large gatherings and litter louts gathering there, but this is patently a national problem and not just isolated to Nottingham.

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Nottingham Arboretum on a summers day. Image Credit blogspot.com

On a balmy Sunday in June 2012 prior to heading back home my brother, Uncle George and I headed up to attend a food and drink festival in the park area. Whilst munching on a tasty snack we witnessed a local Turkmenistan influenced hip hop trio called Balkan Express tinkling away on a small stage in the corner.