The Deaf Institute

The first gig that I ever walked out of was The Cure at Wembley Arena in, I think, 1989. It wasn't that the band were bad - at least not as far as I could tell - it was that I was so far back that I could hear the people around me singing more loudly than the band. Since then, I've had an aversion to large venues and also the ridiculous prices they charge for a watered down live experience. 

It was a huge relief to me that when I got to see Kraftwerk play live again a couple of years ago, it was at Tate Modern, and my excitement at hearing that Kate Bush would be playing some live dates increased tenfold when I found out that she was playing the old Hammersmith Odeon and not the Millennium Dome. 

As an artist, if playing live is important to you, I can't understand why you'd play to any venue holding more than a few thousand people. Indeed, I was delighted when, after a tour of smaller venues in America, Elbow decided to eschew the large venues when they toured back in the UK earlier this year. That put them right up in my estimation but it also seemed more in keeping with them as a band. 

Over the last couple of years I've been to a lot more gigs, partly due to my regular visits to London, but mainly because of the Minx. We've been to quite a few venues around Manchester and The Deaf Institute is one of my favourites. It has a very nice bar and restaurant on the ground floor and a great little venue upstairs. We've seen STRFKR and Kate Tempest here before and tonight we went to see Balthazar, a band that we love (and discovered together).

The evening was made even better by the fact that we met my daughter Hannah for a drink beforehand and then convinced her to come to the gig with us, which I think she enjoyed nearly as much as we did. (You can read about the gig itself here.) We'd decided we'd stay over in a hotel rather than dashing for the train and our evening was made complete when, much later on, we bumped into a member of the band as we headed back to our room. I doubt he was expecting to bump into a couple of enthusiastic fans in the corridor :-)