Tag / Manchester

by Gareth

Even more live shows!

I know I said a while back that I need to post more everyday stuff because it makes it seem like I’m just going out all the time, but this last week has been pretty busy with two gigs that had been postponed by Covid taking place, plus an impromptu trip to the Lowry last Sunday night for some comedy!

So first off, last Saturday I spotted a tweet about Bill Bailey having played at the Lowry the previous night, and there was also mention of him playing a second show on the Sunday night. So on Sunday morning, I bought a ticket for that night’s performance!

Bill Bailey at The Lowry.

I’d previously seen Bill Bailey live a few years ago at the Apollo, and it was really good, although I had seen some bits of that show on various video clips, so parts of it didn’t have quite the impact they would’ve done having seen them for the first time. But with this new show – ‘En Route To Normal’ – it was pretty much all new stuff, and it was hilarious. And the guy is such a top-class musician, and I really love the way he incorporates it so well with the comedy.

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by Gareth

Finally got my workspace sorted

So my office space / guest room is now pretty much finished! I put down some laminate flooring last weekend, and I’d bought the sofa bed a few months ago, and it’s been stored downstairs in its box until Lee popped over last Tuesday morning to help me get it up the stairs and into the room. I’ve still got to put some trim down where the flooring meets the skirting boards, plus get some shelves to put into one of the alcoves to store my camera kit.

My office / guest room.

Office work area.

The main impetus that got me to finish the room is that mum came up to visit last week – her first time since Covid – and I wanted to make sure she had somewhere decent to sleep! She came up to stay for a few days at the end of 2019, but that time I had to put a dust sheet down over a really trashed carpet, along with a blow-up bed that had a very slow puncture!

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by Gareth

Recent shows

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been out to a couple of live shows in Manchester – the first one was just over a week ago, when I went to see the National Theatre production of ‘The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time‘ at the Opera House.

‘The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time’ at the Opera House.

I first heard about it a while back – I think it debuted about 10 years ago, but it came to my attentions because of its good reviews, and also the fact that it uses projection mapping to use video imagery as part of the set to tell the story, so that had also been a factor in me wanting to see it.

Connor Curren as Christopher.

I was also interested in the fact that the lead character has autistic traits, and that the video content was used to reflect what’s going on inside his brain, and wanted to see how that was all handled.

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by Gareth

Summer of Soul

Last night I was at the Savoy Cinema in Heaton Moor – it’s a single-screen independent boutique cinema just near the border to Manchester, and I’ve been there a few times to see films that haven’t been given a showing at Cineworld (where I normally go because I have an Unlimited card).

Anyway, I went yesterday to see a new documentary film about the Harlem Cultural Festival from 1969 called ‘Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)’, which at the time was recorded with a multi-camera set-up onto videotape, but after it was done, no TV network was interested in showing it, despite there being some pretty big names performing at it. So over 50 years later, these recorded performances are finally being seen, along with talking heads of those that either performed, or were in the audience.

It was a really interesting film, with some great music and restoration of the video footage really held up well on the big screen. It was also pretty educational seeing all this in the context of the racial tensions taking place in the US at the same time, which the documentary showed using archive news footage from the 60s.

The other reason for going to last night’s showing is that the Savoy preceded it with some live music, which made the evening more of an event. A local singer called Jermaine Peterson along with Troy his guitarist performed a set of soul covers and some original songs, and it was really good. It was basically just the guitar plugged into an amp and the vocal mic straight into the PA, and the only thing missing was a bit of reverb on the voice, but it sounded surprisingly good since no-one was actually mixing it!

Troy the guitarist & Jermaine Peterson

One bizarre thing about the night was who I was sitting next to… I’d had to buy a luxury seat because all the regular seats had sold out, so I was directed to a block of 4 seats, where two women were already sitting at the aisle end, so I went past them and sat in the end seat, leaving the single seat in-between for social distancing. After sitting down, I had the slight feeling that I’d recognised the older lady as I passed, and a couple of minutes later I overheard her say that she’d written an article for the Daily Mail that week, and at that point I also placed the voice and realised I was sitting next to former Conservative MP and Government minister, Edwina Currie!

Strangely, I actually met her way back in the 90s when I had to film an interview with her at some conference – I think it might have been the WI – but the one thing I remember about it is that she really wasn’t very nice! We were backstage in a small room at the venue, and she was all smiles when the camera was rolling, but I thought she was very rude to everyone the rest of the time!

by Gareth

Socially distanced comedy

As the world tries to get back to some kind of normal, the entertainments industry has started doing stuff again. I’ve been to the cinema quite a bit since they opened back up in May, and more recently I’ve been out to see some live comedy!

Tonight I’ve been at Homeground in Manchester, which is an outdoor venue created by Home to allow for social distancing. It was supposed to be a show with Barbara Nice and Lucy Beaumont, but in the end it was just Barbara because Lucy had been pinged by the Track & Trace app so couldn’t attend!

Barbara Nice at Homeground

I took the tram into town, which was a bit noisier than usual because there were quite quite a few football fans heading into town to watch the Euro finals (I’m not really that bothered by it all, and haven’t actually seen any games throughout the tournament!). I headed over to Home, not realising they had a second venue, so after a bit of confusion, took the short walk over to Homeground. They’ve got a really cool set-up, with a bit of a dystopian fairground flavour(!), with a main stage area where you’re pretty spaced out around tables made from big wooden cable drums.

Because Barbara’s one of Lee’s acts, I’ve seen her live a few times before, and it’s fair to say her shows are pretty random! And since Lucy wasn’t there, it ended up being just an hour long, and involved some questionable karaoke from some members of the audience, but it was pretty funny. And the weather held until the end, when the clouds came over and started to rain over the last bit where the band were playing.

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by Gareth

Recent gigs

Just thought I’d do a bit of a catch-up on some gigs and shows I’ve been to so far this year.

Last night I was at the Manchester Arena to see the Stereophonics. I had a seated ticket, and I was in a block quite near to the stage, so had a pretty good view. With the current situation regarding Coronavirus, I was a bit concerned about being in such a big crowd, but luckily there was no-one nearby coughing crazily(!), and I tried to make sure I didn’t touch my face, or touch too many doors or bannisters! It made me feel glad I’d only been able to get a seated ticket when I saw how much the people down on the main floor were squashed up against each other!

Stereophonics.

Stereophonics.

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by Gareth

Gigs plus studio shoots

It’s been an eventful few weeks – and I’m not even including Christmas in that!

Last night I was at Manchester Arena to see Snow Patrol in concert, and it was a really great gig. It was quite a last minute thing… I decided to look on Monday to see whether there were any tickets left, and I managed to get a seat on one of the sides, which meant I had to sit at a bit of an angle to see the stage!

They had two supports – the first was Roe, who I’d not heard of before, but the second was Kodaline, and I’ve got one of their albums so knew some of the songs they did.

Snow Patrol.

Snow Patrol took to the stage around 9pm, and they played all the classics – ‘Take Back The City’, ‘Chocolate’, ‘Run’, ‘Open Your Eyes’, ‘You’re All I Have’, ‘Cars’ – and even the ones I couldn’t name still sounded familiar… with an encore ending with ‘Just Say Yes’.

Also, just before Christmas, I saw Travis play at the O2 Apollo, and because it’s almost 20 years years since it was released, they played the entire ‘The Man Who’ album from start to finish, followed by a selection of other tracks to wrap up the set.

Travis.

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by Gareth

The Boy With Tape On His Face

Last night me, James and Rob Oldfield went to the Contact Theatre to see ‘The Boy With Tape On His Face‘. He’s managed by Lee from Gag Reflex, so he got us some complimentary tickets for his Manchester show.

We got there in time for the support act, who if I’m totally honest wasn’t great. He didn’t really tell jokes, but rambled on about stuff that wasn’t really funny! And I don’t think the tone of his material really complemented what was to come from the main event.

So, the main show… how on earth do you describe it?!

The Boy is fundamentally a mime artist, but not in the way you’d image when hearing that term. His show involves lots of music, random household props, audience interaction, and lots of red balloons! And even though there’s no speaking, so much humour is conveyed in his actions! I don’t want to give any of the gags away, but it’s genius, and if you get a chance to see his show, then you definitely should!

Afterwards, we were invited to join them for a curry at the Moon in Withington – Lee hadn’t been at the show, but met us there and introduced us to Sam (TBWTOHF) and his support act, Phil (awkward!)

It was really cool though, and Sam is a fascinating person, and very talkative without the tape over his mouth! He told us about him starting out as a clown in his native New Zealand, and all the crazy stuff he got up to as a street performer!

by Gareth

Catch-up of last few weeks

I thought I’d do a bit of a catch-up of what I’ve been up to recently, so here goes!

Last month, I got to see Rob Bell speak at !Audacious in Manchester. I’d caught him at Greenbelt back in 2009 (but was hard to hear because it was outdoors and I was quite a way from the stage). He was on a book tour of the UK, and the night was billed as ‘An evening with Rob Bell’, which meant he could talk about stuff in his new book, as well as talk about other things, and also take questions from the audience.

I know he’s often regarded as controversial, but I did find a lot of what he had to say really interesting and thought provoking, although I think there are things he says that I’m not sure I agree with, but I’m glad I went to hear it.

Then, the following week, we had a bit of a Sharp Tenants social night! After a successful trip to the Frog & Bucket back in March to see some comedy, our next thing was a curry night at Akbar’s on Liverpool Street.

Christian and Alex.

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by Gareth

Coldplay at the Ethiad

On Sunday, I was at one of the most amazing gigs I’ve been to – Coldplay at the Etihad Stadium! I bought 6 tickets on a bit of a whim last year, so have spent the last few months trying to find people to come with me! I only got rid of the last 2 tickets a couple of weeks ago!

I went with Dave Bateman, John Cieszynski, Jon Scruby, and met up outside with my brother Steve and his mate Dan.

We were in the standing area to the right of the stage, and my legs were quite achy but the time we’d got through the 2 support acts, Rita Ora and Robyn. Not overly impressed with Rita Ora – she’s had a few songs out, but mainly vocals on someone else’s track, so it felt a bit strange, and it’s really not my kind of thing… but Robyn was a lot more to my taste!

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by Gareth

Sore head

Happy New Year!

I had a great time celebrating last night, but I’ve been really suffering for it today! I went to a party at Steph’s house, and there were loads of people there – mostly people I know from Reach, but a few that I didn’t know.

Me, Dave and Jimmy.

Dave.

It was a really fun night – there was a bit of a buffet, and lots of beer! We all watched Big Ben chime midnight on the TV, before lots of music and dancing! To be honest, I didn’t really do any dancing – I mainly took photos and also videos on phone! Spent quite a bit of the evening chatting to Dave Bateman – now he’s in Liverpool we don’t catch up too often now, so that was cool.

Midnight!

Abhi and Chloe.

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by Gareth

May Day walk in Rivington

Well today’s been the 4th bank holiday in 2 weeks which is rather odd!  We obviously had Easter last weekend, but on Friday it was the Royal Wedding, which I actually managed to avoid watching at all, and instead went and did some shopping at IKEA, which was probably the quietest I’ve ever seen it! I’d planned to buy some storage furniture for my new bathroom, but I’m struggling to find something I like – I did find a unit there that I thought might work, but when I went to collect it I discovered that they’d discontinued the shelves needed to go inside it! So the search continues!

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Anyway, today was May Day bank holiday and I found out that there was a walk being arranged for the Vinelife / Reach crowd, so I headed up north of Bolton to tag along.

We all met up at Rivington Hall Barn, which really is in the middle of nowhere! I got a little bit lost – my SatNav first tried to take me across a golf course, and then eventually led me to a random collection of cars amongst some trees! Luckily, as I was pulling up, Dan and Gemma arrived as well, along with a few others, and we took an educated guess at which direction to take to get us to the main barn where everyone was meeting.

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by Gareth

Enigma

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Last night I went with John to see Derren Brown’s latest live show ‘Enigma‘ at the Lowry.  John runs the Public Reviews website, and he had a couple of press tickets to go and review the show, so I went for free on his spare ticket!

I find Derren Brown fascinating – I think all his TV shows are great, and he presents traditional magic and illusion in a very contemporary way.  I also find it amusing to read people online who think he’s got real powers(!), but I’m actually in two minds as to whether he uses hypnotism and NLP as part of his act. Certainly stuff I’ve seen on the internet about those methods demonstrate that it’s quite possible, but I don’t really know, and am suspicious of any of his own explanations!

Anyway, back to ‘Enigma’. It really was a brilliant show – great theatrical staging, a very clever structure to the performance, and some really good magic tricks!  And Derren Brown’s an incredibly engaging character – he basically had the whole theatre eating out of his hand.

I’m not going to write about the tricks themselves – mainly because he asked people not to since the show is still touring – but I’m sure it will end up on TV in the near future, just like his previous ones have.  I’ve got an inkling how some of them were done (and today I’ve read a bit about some of the other perfotmances which have given me some more clues), but some of them were truly mind-blowing.

The final trick was one that I just can’t work out how he managed to pull everything together in the way that he did, and with a clever back-reference to something earlier on that seemed pretty throw-away.  John was actually part of the finale – he was one of the 6 volunteers who caught a frisbee thrown out into the audience – so I know it wasn’t done with stooges!

If you get a chance to see the show at all, I can thoroughly recommend it!

by Gareth

A bit about April

The heading kind of gives away the content of this post!  It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with a weekend in Tamworth, a day at the beach, catching up with old friends, and a fancy dress party!

For Easter, I went down to Tamworth for the weekend, and it was nice to spend time with Brandon and Chloe again.  I was obviously down there a few weeks earlier for their birthday party, so I think they remembered me this time round!!

brandon_chloe_easter_2010

I went with mum, Vikky and the twins to the Easter Service at ECC in Lichfield – it was weird going back there since the last time I was there was when I was 18 or 19 – nearly 20 years ago!  We got there pretty early because they were having a buffet breakfast before the service, and Brandon and Chloe managed to get quite a bit of the food down their smart clothes!  I guess that’s quite normal!  I said hello to a few people there who I remembered from when I was there years ago, and also chatted with Dave Bateman’s sister Helen who goes there, and actually works for them as a student worker!

Then on Easter Monday, I was back up north, and a group of us went over to Formby to spend the day at the beach!

beach-jump-1

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by Gareth

I’m a geek!

Last night I was at a Geek Party at Rob & Jenny Kay’s, where you had to go dressed as something inspired by geek chic! Now it may come as real surprise (since I am a bit of a self-confessed geek) that I was really struggling with a costume for the night, but with a couple of days to go, I suddenly hit on gold!

I decided to go as the ultimate geek – Mr Dave Bateman!

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To make this dream a reality, I wondered about the best way to go about it, even Googling to find out how to make an actual 3d head(!), but finally settled on printing his face onto some card to make an oversized mask, with a couple of eyeholes punched through his actual eyes!

It wasn’t the most comfortable thing to wear for the whole evening if I’m honest, but I really enjoyed how it slightly freaked people out as they talked to me!

When Dave himself finally arrived around 10 o’clock, I think he found it pretty strange to have a bobbing-head version of him staring right back!

And the mask proved so popular that everyone wanted to wear it!

dave-heads

Check out the full set of photos from the party in my Facebook photo album.

So what else? Well, going back a couple of weekends, I was down in Tamworth for Brandon and Chloe’s 2nd birthday party!

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