Northern Quarter

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And where the Frog & Bucket is in the Northern Quarter on that Oldham Street, there's loads of little bars and clubs and cocktail bars, and there's another comedy club, and they were just all rammed.

Heaving.

Every night.

The last time I was there, I think this is one, one of the things that has put me off, uh, g- g- gigging in general now outside of London, like, the UK's difficult.

It's expensive to get around by train, and then, you know, housing, hotels kind of universally getting more and more expensive everywhere.

The last time I stayed in the northern quarter, um, I rented an Airbnb above a kebab shop, and they, it was, like, suspiciously cheap, and I was like, "Okay, this is, like, three minutes walk-"

What was the kebab shop's name?

Wine is the biggest area of growth for Hammonds at the moment, which is really exciting for us.

I think we're seeing the growth most with kind of younger operators, you know, wet lead venues, you know, that's, it sounds cliche, but the cooler parts of the city centres, you know, if you're familiar with Manchester, your Northern Quarters and Ancoats and places like that, where, you know, the operators, most of them, they're owner operators in their 20s and 30s, a lot of them.

For, you know, people who perhaps, they're not really stuck in their ways.

They don't come to me and go, James, I need a wine list and I need a Sauvignon Blanc, a Pinot Grigio and a Chardonnay.

But Manchester's real magic lies in its casual blend of headline arena acts and low-key gigs in a handful of intimate, relaxed venues that have remained largely unchanged for decades.

A Mancunian music mission would begin at the O2 Ritz, a Grade II listed dance hall on Whitworth Street where legendary rockers the Smiths played their first gig back in 1982. its sprung dance floor first engineered in nineteen twenty seven is almost a century old and has seen some wild nights frank sinatra the beatles and the stone roses have all played here From here, it's a brisk 15-minute walk into the Northern Quarter, the city's buzzy, artsy neighborhood.

Make a beeline for Night and Day, a former fish and chip shop that has been a beloved gig venue and nightclub for 35 years.

Promoter Dave Beach tells me historic venues like this are a key part of Manchester's thriving music scene.

Yeah, I mean, it's so unique where we've moved to this year.

You know, previously we were in Manchester City Centre at Aviva Studios and the festival was taking place in the wonderful northern quarter in the city centre.

And now this year we've moved over to

Media City.

We want artists to come and play Beyond the Music, but not just get a show out of it, get so much more, you know, a platform.

And in terms of that service that we're providing the artists, we can deliver so much more now at Media City, putting them into this multimedia facility.

You know, I had been trying to put a multimedia facility into the Northern Quarter, which is, you know, not easy.

And for those who don't know, this is our historic district, which looks great and it's fantastic, but it's hard to... to retrofit into a studio, so we are spoiled for choice now in our new location.

We were actually tipped off about it.

And turns out, if you go into the Northern Quarter car park, which is that big, tall car park with all the graffiti on it, if you can tolerate the smell of piss... and make your way through there at 11 in the morning you will see the corn men and also the sort of the tat men the sort of little plush toys oh yeah men getting their carts they're all kept there permanently and these big vans are just sort of chained up and they all have flat tires like they've clearly not moved in ages we spoke to a traffic warden there who said yeah they just have like season passes and they just get to keep their vans there forever is it a council

car bar

It's a council car park, yeah.

He sent a screenshot of the skyline to a friend in the UK.

And this guy had spent years working in Manchester's Northern Quarter.

Okay.

And the friend recognized the building immediately.

Christ

... until we got to the point that all we could do was go to a bar in the Northern Quarter.

And Johnny Marr had started both days in the Night And Day Cafe, which is manager-owned, and it's where you would expect to see Johnny Marr.

And he was a he- And, and he was generally left alone, apart from one very lively young lad.

Um, and then when we went to Northern Quarter and went to this bar, we sort of sat in the middle of it, and I think people could see we're hard at work doing an interview, and everyone left, left us be, even though we found out the bar was tweeting about, "Johnny Marr is in the bar [laughs] doing an interview." And I think people can pull that off if they want to.

So I do wonder, was Bono exuding a certain personality that said, "Approach me"? 'Cause I've also been with Ian McCulloch after a Bunnymen show where people say, "Oh, we've got a great little Anglo-Philly at nightclub, uh, at, round the corner.

You know, they'd love to have you there." And w- and Mac would be, "Well, let's go."