A day in Manchester

Last Wednesday we caught the train into Manchester. I’d bought some tickets for a lunchtime concert by the Hallé – a programme of chamber music that was taking place at the orchestra’s smaller venue in Ancoats, the converted St Peter’s church. We had originally intended to return home before rush hour but on the train in decided to book into a restaurant in the Northern Quarter I’d had my eye on and make more of a day of it.

We arrived in Manchester a couple of hours before the concert was due to start so made our way through to the Northern Quarter and popped into the Craft & Design Centre and had a mooch round the various studios. The building is a former fish market, part of the old Victorian Smithfield Markets complex. There’s some really lovely ceramics, jewellery, art and other items on display and for sale and in some of the studios you can see the artists at work. Prices vary, of course, but you can buy some original works for quite reasonable prices. We were just window shopping this visit, though. However, as the alarm went off on my blood sugar monitoring app on my phone we did treat ourselves in the rather excellent little cafe in the centre

Feeling full and with blood sugar rising, we made our way through the Northern Quarter towards the old working class district of Ancoats and the renovated chrurch where the concert would take place.

The church was built in 1859 when Ancoats was rapidly expanding into major industrial complex of mills and working class housing

Hallé St Peter’s

The Hallé webiste tells us that

the Church had to be built on a budget of only £4,200. This meant that Isaac Holden, the architect and founder chairman of the Manchester Society of Architects, had to be imaginative and practical in his design. For example, brick was used instead of the more expensive stone.

Hallé St Peter’s – Rear view

Rose window

Inside cast iron was used for the columns and arches supporting the roof. With rounded, rather than pointed arches, and a campanile and other Italiante features, I’d probably describe it as “Industrial Romanesque“

In the mid 20th Century with industry in Ancots, and Manchester generally, in decline, and slum clearance reducing the population of the area, the congregation was in decline and the church was closed and deconsecrated. Inevitably the building deteriorated, partly due to vandalism and robbing of valuable materials, but in 2013 it was acquired by the Hallé and converted into a space for rehearsals, smaller concerts and other events.

The concert programme focused on three major influences on the Hallé’s Artist in Residence, the Anglo Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova: science, Renaissance music and folk music, culminating with her string sextet Such Different Paths, all performed by Hallé players, including the lead violinist (who looks about 18!!!)

Zoltan Kodaly – Duo for violin and cello 1st movement
John Dowland – Lachrimae Antiquae
Dobrinka Tabakova – Organum Light
Traditional, arranged Danish String Quartet – Æ Rømeser, Intermezzo & Shine You No More
Dobrinka Tabakova – Such Different Paths

I’m familiar with the three short pieces by the Danish String Quartet, but enjoyed the other works, none of which were too challenging or indigestible, so ideal for a lunchtime concert!

We enjoyed the concert and as I’ll hopefully start to have more time to do things other than work, I’m going to be on the look out for similar events both in Manchester and Liverpool.

Afterwards we decided to go and have a look at New Islington, an area of Ancoats between the Rochdale and Ashton canals that has been “regenerated”. Built on the site of what used to be a rundown council estate, funding to regenerate the area was secured in 2002. The development has been led by Urban Splash, a company who specialise in urban regeneration.

There’s a mix of apartment blocks and town houses, with eateries and a school built around the canal marina where once narrowboats would have been loaded with the produce from the nearby large cotton mills.

I checked out the cost of buying or renting a property here and they’re not exactly in the price range of the people who used to live around here. So it’s an example of gentrification of what was once a working class area. And the funding of the project is controversial as it involved serious investment from Abu Dhabi in a joint venture with Manchester City Council.

There’s an interesting article about the development by Manchester’s online newspaper the Mill.

Walking back towards Great Ancoats Street and the Northern Quarter, we passed a couple of streets of Victorian Terraced houses that have been restored. These would have been among the better quality houses in old Ancoats. Most workers would have lived in poor quality accommodation, probably including back to back houses and tenement blocks, like those shown on this series of pictures from the Manchester Evening News website.

We had a couple of hours before our restaurant booking so wandered over to the City Art Gallery. We’d visited only a few weeks before but decided to have another look around. Since our last visit, a display of newly purchased works had been installed. I particularly liked this photographic 21st century recreation by Emily Allchurch of a painting of Albert Square by Adolphe Valette

Albert Square, Manchester (after Valette), 2015, by Emily Allchurch

Here’s the original, that can also be seen in the Gallery.

Albert Square, Manchester by Adolphe Valette

This simple work of cockle shells cast in Victorian lead by Jamie Holman, commemorates the Chinese cockle pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay in 2004. There is one cockle for each of the drowned workers with the one displaced from the main group representing Dong Zin Wu who is still missing. 

Sea Fruit, 2020, by Jamie Holman

After looking round we wandered back over to Tibb Street in the Northern Quarter where we had a table booked at Evelyn’s Cafe Bar

Their evening menu is inspired by Middle Eastern and Pan-asian dishes. They serve “small plates” (although they weren’t so small!) so we ordered a selection of dishes to share between us. Delicious they were! and quite reasonably priced, too.

Then it was time to head over to Victoria to catch the train home. Luckily, ours wasn’t cancelled!

A Kate Rusby Christmas at the Phil

Way back in 2012 we went to see Kate Rusby’s concert at Warrington’s Parr hall during her annual Christmas tour around the UK. Since then we’ve been to see her perform several times, usually at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall when we would combine the concert with an afternoon looking round the Christmas market and a bite to eat. The past two years “you know what” meant that the tour couldn’t take place. Last year one was planned but Kate and several of the band came down with the lurgy at the last minute so it was truncated. She did arrange to perform on-line so we were able to watch from our living room, but it wasn’t the same as being at a real live event. So this year we were pleased to be able to book tickets to see Kate and her band perform at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

This year Kate has been celebrating 30 years of touring

The Christmas concert is based around old traditional versions of carols as sung around the pubs in South Yorkshire . Some of the songs were well known carols but sung to a different tune, and she performed 3 versions in all of this well known carol, all set to different tunes. 

As well as the Yorkshire versions of the carols she also sang a couple of Cornish carols – there’s a pub carol singing tradition there too – Cornish Wassailing being a favourite.

Other songs  included the familiar carols, “O little town of Bethlehem” and “Joy to the World”, and some of her own Christmassy compositions.

Kate has a big stage presence and twinkling eyes and a smile almost as wide as the stage. She chats away between the songs and really does seem to be enjoy the Christmas celebrations. She was accompanied by her band of folk musicians and also by a brass quintet, which makes the performance particularly Christmassy for me.

As with other of her Christmas shows we’ve seen, the concert was in 2 halves, finishing, after the encore (where they all dressed up as Christmas presents!), at 10. So they were on stage in total for over 2 hours, but it didn’t seem that long. So another enjoyable night out – and great to see some live music. Christmas starts here!

Sizergh Castle. A walk, a meal and a concert.

A few weeks ago we had tickets for a concert in Kendal by This is the Kit. Rather than just drive up in the late afternoon for the evening performance we decided to make a day of it. We had thought of visiting Blackwell as we hadn’t been there for a while, but found that they were installing a new exhibition that would open a couple of days later so it wasn’t the best time to go. We’ll get up there soon though, Something in Common tells the story of England’s countryside and the peoples’ fight for Common Land, a theme right up my street, so to speak. So, instead we decided on visiting Sizergh Castle, a National Trust property, as we hadn’t been there for quite some time.

The National Trust website describes the property as a “beautiful medieval house with rich gardens and estate“, and I think that pretty much sums it up. The house isn’t owned by the Trust though – this is one of those sites where the owners couldn’t afford to pay for the upkeep of the house and estate so made a deal with the Trust. The castle with its garden and estate is in the care of the National Trust but the house is still owned by Hornyold-Strickland family – a type of arrangement I’m not comfortable with. Most of the house is open to the public, but there’s a private residential wing and I expect the family use the hall for entertaining outside he NT’s opening hours. I’m not sure whether they live there full time, mind.

We parked up and after a coffee went for our self-guided tour of the hall and gardens.

The oldest part of the house, the defensive tower, was built in the mid 14th century. It used to be thought that it was a pele tower, built as a defence from marauding Scots, but these days is considered to be a “solar tower” as it contained private living space for the owners, for their “sole” use – hence the name. A true pele tower was a defensive structure that could be used by the local population when being harassed by the reivers.

The most impressive features of the house for me were the oak panelling and fireplace surrounds.

Some of the panelling had been sold to the V&A in the 1890’s. However it was returned in 1999 on a long-term loan.

As usual with these “stately homes” there was a large collection of paintings, particularly portraits, and we spotted a couple by the local lad George Romney. The Strickland family were Catholics and strong supporters of the Stuart monarchy and one room is full of portraits of the monarchs from that dynasty.

The gardens are particularly impressive. Our previous visit had been during the autumn so the colours were much fresher and greener in early summer. However, I reckon they would look good whatever the season.

The limestone rock garden, which was created in the 1920s, is the largest of it’s type under the National Trust’s stewardship.

I always like a good vegetable garden!

After looking round the garden we returned to the cafe for a light meal before setting out for a walk around the grounds. A misunderstanding on my part meant we ended up following the longer set route which was more than J intended. I blame my poor colour vision for misreading the map!

After walking through some fields and meadows the route took us into the woods of Brigsteer Park

and then on to Park End where a short diversion down a boardwalk took us to a hide overlooking a recreated wet land.

Park End Moss, which is on the edge of the Lyth Valley, was once an area of degraded farmland that’s been “rewilded” by the National Trust into a wetland haven for wildlife. It’s probably how much of the valley would have looked before it was drained to create agricultural land.

Looking back as we climbed the hill up towards the nearby farm we had a good view over the wetland with Whitbarrow dominating the far side of the valley (I must get up there one of these days).

We then had a steep climb for a while to take us to the top of a ridge overlooking the valley (I was getting in trouble now for misinterpreting the map).

A short diversion along the ridge as far as St John’s church

allowed a view over the valley right across to the Lake District Fells. Worth the climb (at least I thought so).

We then followed the route back down through woods and field to Sizergh (down hill more or less all the way), passing some typical Cumbrian farmhouses (I think they’re rented out now as holiday cottages by the Trust).

The cafe was closing up as we reached the hall complex so there wasn’t time for a final brew, so we returned to the car and drove over to Kendal which only took about 15 minutes . We had a mooch around the town centre, including the obligatory visit to Waterstones where, as frequently happens, books were purchased. We then picked up some supplies from Booths supermarket followed by a tour around the one way system so that we could park up before we made our way to the Brewery Arts Centre. There were no spaces left in their car park so another trip around the one way system was needed to find a space on an alternative convenient car park – free after 6 pm – near Abbot Hall (which has been closed for the past few years as it’s being renovated. Hopefully it will be reopening soon – fingers crossed)

We’d decided to eat in the Arts Centre restaurant. Having never been there before I was surprised just how large it was and there seemed to be plenty of customers, many taking advantage of an early evening pizza deal. We were too late to take advantage of that but, in any case, I was very pleased with my choice of a rather tasty pie with sweet potato fries, followed by

a pudding to mark the state of our nation i.e. an Eton Mess.

I rather liked this tapestry representing different aspects of Kendal, that wa son the wall of the restaurant.

We finished in good time for a pre concert drink and then on to the gig.

I’ve known of This is the Kit for a number of years – they’re played regularly on Radio 6 Music – and enjoy their work, and I wasn’t disappointed with the concert. I was impressed with the venue. It was larger than expected but with the main seating area quite steeply banked there was a good view of the stage from most seats. I think it’s likely we’ll be returning in the future as we can combine a concert with a day out in the southern Lakes and a nice meal in the restaurant! I’ll be keeping an eye on their “What’s on” page on their website.

After the concert we headed back to the car passing the Leyland Motors Clock that once stood on Shap summit but in 1973 was relocated to stand outside the Brewery Arts Centre.

So, all in all, a good day out.

A bit of culture

Over the past few weeks we’ve been busy soaking up a bit of culture

The Thursday of my week off work we had tickets for a production at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick. We’d planned to combine that with a lower level walk in the Borrowdale Valley, but plans had to change after J sprained her foot. Luckily she’d recovered enough to have a look around Keswick before a pre-theatre meal in the Fellpack restaurant

Our theatre tickets were for a performance of The Ladykillers, a play based on the 1955 Ealing Comedy a favourite film of mine that starred Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers. The play is based on the film, not the other way round and it had first been produced back in 2011 at Liverpool Playhouse, starring Peter Capaldi.

The plot followed that of the film, with a few differences. As with previous visits to the Theatre by the Lake we enjoyed the production. Is was well acted, particularly Dominic Gately as the Professor, who brought a real comic touch to the role. Devesh Kishore wasn’t as sinister as Herbert Lom as Louis – who could be – but I thought Luke Murphy made more of the part of Harry than Peter Sellers.

This week the weather mid week has been awful with heavy rain (we didn’t get it anywhere near as bad a further east and south, mind). We had tickets for two events – a play at the Royal Exchange on Wednesday and a musical performance at the Halle’s small venue in Ancoats on Thursday so we braved the rain and drove into Manchester two days on the trot.

Another pre-theatre meal, this time at Mowgli’s in the Corn Exchange

Light Falls a new play by Simon Stephens, with music by Jarvis Cocker, at the Royal Exchange, has had good reviews and was almost sold out, even on a wet Wednesday evening.

Connecting five relatives in five disparate English towns, from Blackpool to Durham, LIGHT FALLS is a richly layered play about life in the face of death, about how our love survives us after we’ve gone – and about how family, community and kindness help the North survive.

Royal Exchange website

As with just about everything we’ve seen at the Royal Exchange it was a good production with some excellent performances by the cast. Mind you, the first half in particular really lived up to the saying that “it’s grim up north”. It started by somebody dying before moving round the north of England to “visit” her husband and offspring who all had their own problems. Things resolved themselves a little at the end at the funeral and the ending was a little more optimistic.

Thursday evening and we were back in Manchester to see a performance by a young Polish pianist Hania Rani ( short for Raniszewska) at the Halle St Michaels venue, a converted church, in Ancoats. I’d come across her via Spotify, which has a “Discover Weekly” feature, where tracks are suggested based on your playlists. One week it had included one of her piano pieces from her recently released LP, Esja, and as I liked it I followed the link and explored the LP and some of her other music, including her LP with cellist Dobrawa Czocher.

Looking at Hania’s website I spotted that she was performing in Manchester at the start of a European tour so decided to get along. I had to buy the tickets online and was surprised to see that the start time was given as 7 p.m., which seemed rather early. Turned out that it was! We arrived in Manchester just after 6, parked up and walked across the city centre and Northern Quarter towards Ancoats, stopping off for a drink in a bar. We arrived at the venue at about quarter to 7 to discover that they were still conducting sound checks and that the doors were not due to open at 7:30. An apology would have been nice but the guy on the door seemed indignant that we’d turned up early (as had other people). So, a little dischuffed, we went back to the Northern Quarter for another drink.

I really enjoyed the concert, though. It’s a small venue, rather like the Liverpool Philharmonic’s “Music Room”, but it was pretty full. Hania played a fairly long set – about an hour and 20 minutes, without a break. I recognised many of the pieces from her LP but she also included a number of other pieces including 3 songs.

Hania is originally from Gadansk but now shares her time in Warsaw and Berlin. Her label, Gondwana Records, is Manchester based, which is why her tour was starting there. I think that her style is best described as minimalist classical – rather like the music of Michael Nyman, Philip Glass and Max Richter – with jazz and other influences.

Here’s a couple of her pieces, both from her LP

and here’s a piece performed with Dobrawa Czocher

Lunasa in Keswick

Quite a few years ago now, during one of my first trips to Ireland with work, I picked up a CD of music by, Lunasa, an Irish band I’d heard being played in a shop selling traditional Irish music. I’ve played it many many times since and they’ve become my favourite Irish band. A few weeks ago I found out that they had a short tour over in England and the first date was in Keswick at the Theatre by the Lake, so I booked a couple of tickets, planning to combine the concert with an afternoon in the Lakes.

Lunasa are named after “Lughnasadh”, an ancient Irish harvest festival. They’re very accomplished musicians who play a modern take on Irish traditional music on traditional instruments such as Uilleann pipes, fiddle and flute combined with guitar, and double bass.

There’s no singing, they are purely an instrumental band. Well, usually as on their most recent album they feature a number of guest singers. But in Keswick there was no singing just extremely well played music – plus some banter from the Brummie born (!) flautist from County Clare (I spotted his accent) Kevin Crawford .

The other current members of the band are  Trevor Hutchinson (double bass), Ed Boyd (guitar), Seán Smyth (fiddle and low whistle) and Cillian Vallely (uilleann pipes and low whistles). Although the line up has varied in the past.

Seán is a practising GP in Mayo and doesn’t appear on all their Youtube clips, presumably due to not always being able to Ed Boyd is from Bath and has worked with other musicians, including Kate Rusby. We’re sure we saw him playing in her band during one of her Christmas shows.

Their set included traditional tunes from Ireland, Scotland and Brittany, as well as some of their own compositions.

We also managed to combine the concert with a short walk along the east coast of Derwent Water followed by a vey delicious meal in the Fellpack restaurant in Keswick. It was a bit of a grey day, but it’s always good to be up in the Lakes

Vishtèn at the Phil

Last Saturday we went out for the second evening on the trot, having been to a concert by the St Petersburg Philharmonic at the Bridgewater Hall on Friday. Almost unheard of these days! This time we drove into Liverpool for a performance at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall’s Music Room by the Canadian Arcadian folk band Vishtèn. We hadn’t heard of the band before I saw the advert for the concert, but having checked out their website I thought they looked like a good bet for an enjoyable evening – I wasn’t wrong!

Wikipedia tells us that The Acadians 

are the descendants of French colonists who settled in Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries, some of whom are also descended from the Indigenous peoples of the region.

They were expelled from Canada by the British, and some migrated to Louisiana forming the Cajun population in the USA. But some managed to hang on in Canada.

The trio comprises multi-instrumentalists Emmanuelle and Pastelle LeBlanc from the Evangeline Region of Prince Edward Island, and Magdalen Islands’ native, Pascal Miousse……. Together, they pay homage to their traditions and to the historic and strong musical connections between their two island Acadian communities (Band’s website)

Their music is a mix of French, Irish and Scots influences, including energetic reels and lively balads sung in the Acadian French dialect. There were some similarities with Cajun music which I like.

Pastelle, the male member of the band played fiddle and guitar while the two female members, who are twin sisters, played various instruments, including keyboard, accordian, mandolin and tin whistles. They also provide percussion, with their feet! They efffectively tap danced while they were sitting down playing their instruments.

I really enjoyed the evening and have been following up the concert during the past week listening to a CD I bought at the concert and via Spotify. I’d certainly go to see them again if I get the chance.

Kate Rusby at the Bridgewater Hall 2018

Last Wednesday afternoon we travelled over to Manchester. We called into the City Art Gallery to take a look at the Martin Parr exhibition currently showing there, then had a look around the Christmas Market. But our main reason for the visit was to see Kate Rusby’s Christmas concert at the Bridgewater Hall.

Kate Rusby is an award winning folk singer from Penistone in South Yorkshire, very well known on the folk circuit, who’s had a number of albums that have sold well and made the album charts. Her Christmas concert is based around old traditional versions of carols as sung around the pubs in South Yorkshire . Some of the songs were well known carols but sung to a different tune – for example While Shepherd’s watched sung to “On Ilkley Moor B’aht ‘at”. She performed 3 versions in all of this well known carol, all set to different tunes. Other songs  included the familiar carols, “O little town of Bethlehem” and “Joy to the World”. 

On the 7th gig of Christmas… we're in @BridgewaterHall Manchester! Brilliant singing and waving! #rusbyxmas pic.twitter.com/X5HOvz85P4

— Kate Rusby (@katerusby) December 12, 2018

She played with her band – a guitarists (her husband), a bouzouki player,  an accordionist, a double bassist (who also played a Moog synthesiser) and a drummer, plus a five piece brass ensemble. The brass band gave it a real northern Christmassy feel.

For someone who isn’t so tall (!) she has a big stage presence and twinkling eyes and a smile almost as wide of the stage and chatted away between the songs. She really did seem to be enjoying herself, a true performer. 

As with other of her Christmas shows we’ve seen, the concert was in 2 halves, finishing, after the encore, at 10. So they were on stage in total for over 2 hours, but it didn’t seem that long. So another enjoyable night out. And Christmas starts here!

A night at the Opera

Sydney Opera House is one of the world’s iconic buildings; designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon who, at that time, was a relatively unknown young architect.  His dramatic concept, caught the eye of the judges of the international competition held to decide on a design.

Last time I was in Sydney (3 years ago) I joined a guided tour and also went to see a play  being shown in the Drama Theatre, one of the 4 smaller venues in the “basement” of the building, but wasn’t able to see a production in one of the large auditoria. So before we set out for Australia we checked the Opera House’s website and were able to get tickets for a night of opera in the main auditorium, the Concert Hall.

We had a meal in one of the restaurants that line the east side of the Circular Quay and then headed over to the Opera House to have a look around inside the building before the start of the concert in areas only accessible for concert goers or on a guided tour.

There were views over the harbour from the large windows at the end of the building

Inside the auditorium, ready for the concert to begin

The main piece was a on Act opera by Bela Bartok based on the rather gruesome story of Bluebeard. A quite heavy piece and not exactly a light hearted pre-Christmas concert, but enjoyable nevertheless. I’m not really up to critiquing a serious Classical  concert but this review sums it up I think.

And after the concert

A good experience and an enjoyable evening.

Performance Art at the NGI

Just after I’d arrived at the National Gallery of Ireland on Sunday and was starting to explore (I had a couple of hours before my time slot for the main exhibition), when I wandered into the Shaw room, a rather grand large room close to the Merion Square entrance, it was clear something was going on. I could see a group of people with musical instruments who were clearly setting up to perform and several people setting up easels.

It didn’t take me long to suss out what was going on. Like most Galleries holding major exhibitions, the National Gallery of Ireland has held a number of events to accompany the Vermeer and Masters of Genre Painting Exhibition, and this was one of them.

Many of the paintings in the exhibition feature musicians and musical instruments from the Dutch “Golden Age”– virginals, lutes, harpsichords, violas and the like as well as singers. So the Gallery had organised a collaborative event – Performance Art – with the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) and the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA). Musicians from the RIAM performed music from the Dutch Golden Age on instruments of the time, while members of the RHA had set up their easels so they record the scene live – sketching and drawing.

A good crowd gathered to watch the musicians and the artists at work. It was an enjoyable event and I stayed for a good hour, only leaving because it was getting close to my time slot to see the exhibition.

The musicians were Catriona O’Mahony playing baroque violin, Miriam Kaczor who played the recorder and baroque flute,

David Adams on harpsichord, Andrew Robinson, who played the viol and lute,

who also told us a little about the instruments and the type of music that was played during the Golden Age

and soprano Clodagh Kinsella.

The artists were Una Sealy, Blaise Smith, Cian Mcloughlin, Sean Molloy and Comnghall Casey. They didn’t seem to be at all put off by everyone watching them at work and taking photographs.

PJ Harvey at the Victoria Warehouse

On Thursday we went to see PJ Harvey performing at the Victoria Warehouse in Manchester. I was rather a latecomer to her music. I’d always liked some of her songs but it was the release of Let England Shake 5 years ago, with it’s socially aware and political lyrics about Britain’s role in war from Gallipoli to Afghanistan, and effects on people – combatants and civilians –  set to simple but imaginative music, that got me interested in her work and which led me to exploring her back catalogue more thoroughly. She continued the political theme in her release earlier this year The Hope Six Demolition Project, with songs inspired by visits to the Middle East and Washington DC.

The audience was made up of a real mix of ages, with quite a high proportion of “oldies” so I didn’t feel out of place.

PJ was accompanied by a band of 9 accomplished musicians, including long time collaborator John Parrish and the show started with them marching in line onto stage beating drums and playing saxophones for the first song, Chain of Keys from Hope Six Demolition Project. This led into a theatrical performance comprising songs from the last two albums with a few older numbers. They moved from one song to another without pausing to introduce the numbers. They only stopped for Polly Jean to introduce the band members (a mix of nationalities – she’s not a Brexiter) towards the end of the set.

The performance was dominated by Polly Jean, a tiny, incredibly skinny, figure dressed in black with long trailing sleeves.

It was an excellent show which I thoroughly enjoyed, reinforcing my admiration for a talented artist.

Fortunately we arrived early. The venue, as the name implies is a former warehouse, a large open space, standing only. We were stood within 10 metres of the stage, close to the front, and had a decent view. However it wasn’t the same for everyone. There was a barrage of complaints from people who arrived later and were stuck at the back and whose view of the stage was blocked by other people. Some tweeted that they couldn’t even get inside the main room.

The venue have responded

“In response to suggestions that this event was ‘oversold’, we would like to clarify that ticket sales were within our licensed capacity and the promoter was working strictly to our guidelines in this area. The safety of our customers and staff is always our main concern. The issues that have been flagged up are operational ones.

“Although this was a very popular gig, there was in fact room for all ticket holders, with space available towards the middle and the front of the crowd. This has been confirmed by feedback from patrons situated in these areas. However, because there was no support act, there was little movement once people had found some space to wait in.

“The Victoria Warehouse loads from the rear, which meant that as more people arrived and the initial crowds remained static, there was a concertina effect that lead to a very busy area towards the rear bar. Those caught up in this have understandably interpreted it as ‘overselling’ of the event. We sent response teams into the crowd to try to move people forwards but with little success.

I don’t think that’s good enough. It is the venue’s responsibility to manage the crowd. By their own admission they clearly failed to do this and the result was that a lot of people were disappointed and their memories will be of these problems rather than an excellent performance.

I have to say I was not impressed by the venue management. I’d contacted them earlier in the week as I wanted to check on car parking near the venue. Once they realised I wasn’t enquiring about parking for the hotel on the site, they clearly weren’t interested and didn’t have the courtesy to respond. So the bad crowd management seems to confirm that the management are only interested in taking the money from their customers and once they have that customer service goes out of the window.