Manchester Music Trail

New kid on the block, New Century Hall, actually has an impressive musical heritage. By day the venue hosted recruitment fairs, antique auctions, and conferences on smog, by night it was something altogether more captivating with regular Northern Soul DJs and dances (and like another Motown hotspot, The Ritz on Whitworth Street West, it has a sprung dance floor). World-famous acts came to New Century Hall, predominantly in the 60s, such as The Kinks, Tina Turner and The Rolling Stones. By the 80s, it was the unlikely location for the burgeoning acid house scene with regular nights put on by 808 State. After a long period of dormancy, and a peculiar stoicism surrounding its place in our musical heritage, the hall has returned as a glorious modernist venue with promoters Now Wave at the helm.  

Image credit: Russell WBHO

Named after the fact the stage was effectively a perch on the wall so as not to use up precious drinking space, Band on the Wall has come a long way since its days as a pub for the carters, fishmongers, and barrow boys of the Smithfield Markets in the 1930s. The venue was conceived as a home for jazz, although it was always a more mixed bag than that, with a reputation for ‘world-music’, as well as regular nights like Craig Charles’ Funk and Soul Show, and Mr Scruff’s Keep It Unreal. Short-lived Icelandic art-punk anarchists, Purrkur Pillnikk, performed here in 1982 (rumours have it, with a teenage Bjork). The venue also works closely with local charities and initiatives such as Brighter Sound to bring music to the new generation with events like Junior Jam and early-years session Shake, Rattle & Roll. Manchester Jazz Festival has strong ties with the venue, as well as with nearby Matt & Phreds; an intimate music venue full of soul.

Located down a distinct alleyway in the Northern Quarter, Aatma (formerly Kraak Gallery), established itself as a site for DIY culture for the region. Just next door sits the Peer Hat, a popular gig venue and bar continuing in a similar vein as Aatma, as a home for local promoters and bands. Both venues have managed to retain their dive bar charms, and Aatma has an electric atmosphere. Experimental local bands are at home on the stage here, including the likes of Locean, who mix the spoken word of Roy Fisher Prize winning poet Lauren Bolger with powerful psychedelic sounds. Notably though, is the work of a much-missed musician, performer and leader of local DIY culture. Louise Woodcock was  Kraak’s first curator, and was a bedrock for institutions like Islington Mill and Fat Out. She shook up the music scene of Manchester from the early 2000s and was a role model and instigator for queer music, women, and noise.

Formerly Soup Kitchen, Soup encapsulates the authentic heart of the Northern Quarter. It’s steadfastly welcoming, unassuming, cool, and unpolished. The gig space is a low-ceilinged, dark basement, and captures the nature of the city’s iconic at-home parties (shebeens). Their regular nights and overall ethos as a venue has put them on the map. For 11 years, Soup was home to Swing Ting. The night was experimental and diverse reflecting the people it opened its door for. The music was afro-bashment, dancehall, hip-hop and garage and there was nowhere centrally quite like it. Whilst Swing Ting ended on a high in 2022, the venue has kept the same vibe going. They pride themselves on ‘forward-thinking’ music, including techno, and have set an affordable price cap on tickets, keeping music at the heart of the city. 

Image Credits: Man Alive

When Night and Day opened in 1991, the Northern Quarter wasn’t even named yet, much less a thriving neighbourhood for musicians. The former chip shop soon became a vital part of the music scene, crucial to the careers of many local bands including Elbow, and early career appearances from ​​Manic Street Preachers, Wet Leg, and Arctic Monkeys. There’s an eclectic line up at times, and the venue has even attracted the likes of Keanu Reeves there to see Joseph Arthur, supported by Manchester’s Liam Frost. Night and Day undoubtedly led to more music venues opening in the area, and today, The Castle, Gullivers, Stage and Sound, 33 Oldham Street, and countless others sit alongside it. Whilst it’s uniquely Manchester, there’s more than a hint of New York about this pillar of the neighbourhood. Always cool, always alive with potential.

Today we have Manchester Psych Fest, but in 1968 if you wanted to enjoy psych music then it was slightly more underground. The Magic Village opened on Cromford Court, a Victorian backstreet, and unusually for a venue, it had no alcohol licence. Reeking of incense, it had a per

manently leaky ceiling (which patrons would traverse by a rope swing), and it was one of the only venues in the city that allowed men with long hair. It was also the place to pick up underground press publications, including mystical magazines such as Gandalf’s Garden.  

In between sets the bands would sit with the audience. Sometimes the two lines would blur, choosing to continue their set on the floor, and audience members included the likes of a young David Bowie.  

Typical bands to The Village were blues band The Groundhogs, American psychedelic rock band Missunderstood, folk singer Bridget St John, Manchester freakbeat band St Louis Union, Jethro Tull, T-Rex, Slade, Roy Harper, Pink Floyd, Captain Beefheart, The Fairport Convention and DJ John Peel. 

It was short lived. In the 1970s it was bulldozed, along with the rest of Cromford Court and surrounding streets, for the Arndale. The street lived on in name by way of 60 flats on the roof of the Arndale from 1981 to 2004, and true to its namesake, was a popular location for after parties.  

A bold and progressive cultural centre which secured funding to protect the venue from encroaching gentrification in the Chapel Street area. The mill is synonymous with Fat Out Festival, and Sounds From the Other City, a music festival at the start of May. Brilliant, friendly, subversive and euphoric, it’s surely the most fun you can have along the River Irwell. The festival has operated in and around the Mill since 2005 and is touched by the genius that is Riv Burns - a legitimate cultural hero for Greater Manchester who brings her musical ideas not only to the mill but to Manchester International Festival and myriad other gigs and events. The Mill is neighboured by St Philip’s and Sacred Trinity, both regular live music venues - the latter is home to Manchester School of Samba.

It may be an icon for television, but the studios at Granada aren’t to be overlooked in our musical heritage. In 1962, The Beatles made their first TV appearance here performing Love Me Do live. In 1976, the show So It Goes was broadcast from the studios. Presented by Tony Wilson, the music show honed in on punk and became a launchpad for new music. The Sex Pistols first TV appearance was on the show, and acts like Patti Smith and Iggy Pop also appeared. The show didn’t just help punk bands reach a wider audience, but it also established the North as a place of burgeoning creativity. In 2023, a new wave of music returned to the area, at Factory International’s Aviva Studios, the new home of Manchester International Festival and the global artists and musicians which it platforms. Not to be missed nearby is One Mic Stand, a music and slam poetry event at Blues Kitchen. The event’s run by Young Identity - one of our most thriving institutions, who nurture young spoken word artists such as Isaiah Hull.

With the introduction of the weekend by William Marsden in 1843, the working class had time, for the first time, to socialise. As a result the city's music which had previously catered solely for ‘esteemed gentlemen’ became open to all as it spread up Peter Street and Oxford Road. The Halle Orchestra at the Free Trade Hall, now found itself cheek by jowl with raucous music halls. This wave of often quite bawdy entertainment was countered by the introduction of Temperance concerts; alcohol-free music events located in purpose-built temples that were designed to look like theatres or concert halls in the hope of converting Mancunians to tee-totalism. The Albert Hall is the most striking example of this, and when the former Wesleyan chapel reopened as a music venue in 2013, it hit the ground running.

Originally a home for political discourse as well as music, the concert hall was the birthplace and home of the Halle Orchestra from 1858. The building is famous for its gigs in the 60s and 70s too, where Bob Dylan was called ‘Judas’ for playing the electric guitar, where Kiss played their first UK show, Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, Simon and Garfunkel, and where 40 people went to see The Sex Pistols first gig, which started a domino effect leading to the creation of the Hacienda, and the formation of bands such as The Fall, The Smiths, and Joy Division.

In 1996, the Halle moved to Bridgewater Hall where they are until this day but have also brought their symphonies to Ancoats with their dedicated rehearsal and recording space at Halle St Peters, and a community space at Halle St Michaels. The latter is used for contemporary bands, including the utterly unique and compelling Oldham-born Keeley Forsyth, who embodies the dark and haunting sounds of the surrounding moors with an elemental voice akin to Scott Walker or Anohi.  

The Boardwalk is well-known as the first venue Oasis played, and outside the acid-house smiley face on the plaque firmly establishes its credentials amongst the Madchester subset of musicians, the opening night featured James, The Charlatans, and Happy Mondays, and its regular clubnight Yellow was from DJ Dave Haslam. However, it wasn’t as simply defined as Madchester, it could be altogether noisier and international with acts like Sonic Youth, Rage Against the Machine, and Hole gracing the stage. It was renowned as one of the spiritual homes for what was known as C86, predominantly a type of guitar music which heralded the first wave of indie. C86 was the name of a compilation tape made by NME in 1986, which connected the dots for a lot of DIY acts around the country who were siloed by difficulties in connecting with other musicians across the country except through small-runs of zines, or word-of-mouth.

Image Credit: Ginger Box Images

Before the city became more nationally recognised for contemporary music and dance thanks to the likes of Paradise Factory and the Hacienda, there was Legend.  Known more usually as Legends, the interior was made up of 2000 decorative lights designed like a spaceage fairground. The club promoted itself initially as a ‘futuristic disco club’, though it became far more than disco. It was a space for a wealth of subcultures, new romantics and goths amongst them. DJ Greg Wilson’s Electro-funk night brought the jazz-funk of New York to the dancefloors of Manchester, and with it, Legends became an essential venue for the Black community, especially the young folk of Moss Side. Legends was a student haunt, and later the building reopened as 5th Avenue - if you studied in Manchester anytime since the early 80s, you’ve danced in Legends or 5th Ave.

2018 brought us YES. A place that takes all the most essential, intangible parts of the city’s favourite bars and venues, and brings them together making something totally unique and reassuringly familiar. WIth gigs six days out of seven, the child-friendly, dog-friendly, affordable cultural space has an ambitious calendar of music that is united not by a genre but a feeling of excitement. Across four floors, the idea is to capture the feeling of a music festival with something different on each level. A dark basement for intimate gigs, DIY nights and a free entry policy at the weekends goes hand in hand with the affordable ethos at the bar. The ground floor hosts DJs and it acts as a breakout space from the gigs it finds itself sandwiched between. The main space is on floor three - The Pink Room. Pink walls, pink ceiling, pink floor, a simple idea that sets it apart from anywhere else and a space that attracts the likes of Self Esteem. The variety at YES is the attraction, and the promoters have unerring ambition, which they have to with a sound system approved by NASA. 

In 2008, if you weren’t on your way to indie disco Underachievers Please Try Harder at Rusholme’s Saki Bar (later relocated to Roadhouse), then chances are you were headed to the Deaf. In fact, anyone involved in the music scene from the late 2000s on has spent time here. The ornate and striking small venue, established itself as the place to catch a gig for the indie hipster scene and it took off immediately with a jam-packed gig calendar from the likes of Bill Callahan, Sunset Rubdown, and Edwyn Collins. It’s been a vital space for local bands too, and the layout of the gigspace has allowed for social connections between music lovers in a way most venues don’t achieve. In terms of adoration and reputation, consider it a twin to Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club. Location-wise, it’s a gateway to the Academy venues on Oxford Road, the Apollo at Ardwick, and across the road is Bread Shed, where metal and emo finds itself at home.

Mayfield was an abandoned train depot for many years, and it sits besides the cultural icon that is the Star and Garter. The pub, known since the 90s as a grassroots gig space, but for much longer as a working class boozer, consider themselves the last truly independent music venue in Manchester. Mayfield Depot next door is now a cultural hotspot for the city and is home to the Warehouse Project. WHP is a huge, seasonal nightclub operating three months a year (inspired by the busiest months at Ancoats nightclub Sankeys) and in its colourful history has seen Aphex Twin, The Prodigy and Skepta. Considered by many to be the best club in the UK, it offers a mix of established DJs and upcoming acts.  

Mayfield is also the current home of Homoelectric, a queer-friendly night which began in earnest as a space to unite Mancunians by holding mixed parties for ‘homos, heteroes, lesbos and don’t knows’. The club night was one of a few, including Flesh at the Hacienda, and Club Brenda, that moved the gay club scene away from aesthetics and house music, to something more casual, more eclectic and took inspiration from the come-as-you-are attitude of the punk scene.