Festival: BBC 6 Music Festival, Victoria Warehouse, Trafford, Fri 28 Feb – Sat 1 Mar
BBC 6 Music’s debut festival hits Victoria Warehouse in Old Trafford this weekend. But good luck getting a ticket. All 8500 tickets got snapped up quicker than a free pint in Wetherspoons (try here).
Blur frontman Damon Albarn will be headlining the festival and test-driving material from his debut solo LP, Everyday Robots, on the Friday night, while hot Ohioan property The National will headline the Saturday night.
They’ll be joined by a further 28 acts spread across three stages over two days of music, including: young British folk prodigy Jake Bugg, Scottish art-housers Franz Ferdinand, Aussie psych-dance duo Jagwar Ma, US retro sister act Haim, strength-to-strength UK band Bombay Bicycle Club and Mercury Prize winning golden boy James Blake. Full line-up here.
During the day the Victoria Warehouse Hotel will also play host to a separately ticketed Festival Fringe with Salfordian-bard John Cooper-Clarke, former Oasis manager Alan McGee and author/broadcaster/media fella Stuart Maconie, amongst others.
More info here. Tickets are sold out but there are a final few available on Seatwave for £40+
"So then I said: Where's your sunglasses?"
Event: Tattoo Tea Party, EventCity (by the Trafford Centre), Sat 1 Mar – Sun 2 Mar, Opens 11.30am
What do Becks, Mike Tyson, Cher, Rihanna, Cheryl Cole, Angelina Jolie, Justin Bieber, Ryan Gosling, actually... all celebrities, footballers and David Dimbleby, yes, David sodding Dimbleby (the Question Time presenter has a scorpion of all things) have in common? They’ve all been ink’d and they'll all probably not be here. Except maybe Dimbles.
Still, this is the third instalment of the Tattoo Tea Party, a tattoo convention hosting over 150 ‘skin artists’, they’ll also be clothing, jewellery, dodgems, art, skateboards, stand-up, taxidermy, Dr Phantasma’s Sideshow, a twelve-piece ukele band, a fortune teller and the ominous sounding ‘death matches’ – which isn't as lethal as it sounds, just big spongey glove boxing. Buffoonery.
Day tickets £17 or £28 for the weekend. Buy here. Music: Temples, Manchester Academy 2, Sat 1 Mar, 7.30pm
Part of a British psychedelic guitar riff revival alongside the much improved post-goth Horrors and floppy haired ‘is it a boy or is it a girl’ band Toy (who killed their recent set at Gorilla), this Kettering tetrad could not have followed the 'HOW TO: Look Like A Psychedelic Band' manual more stringently. Like melting down Jim Morrison and Mark Bolan and siphoning them off into off identical waifish plastic moulds.
Still, their debut album released this month, a hallucinogenic and hazy 60s homage, has pricked a great number of ears and they’re selling venues out across the nation. Must be doing something right. Music, probably.
Temples
Market: Gin and Tonic Vintage, Terrace bar, Northen Quarter, Sat1 March
Vintage. It’s one of those painfully overused words, like ‘chic’, ‘decadent’, 'cocktail masterclass' (granted, that's two), ‘literally’ and most recently in MCR, ‘Prince’. It can also be terribly vague, covering just about everything from my ‘96 Adidas popper tracksuit bottoms to Fatty Arbuckle’s nut-huggers.
Still, do it properly, and vintage is a great thing. Just last week I picked up two Ralph Lauren flannel shirts for under £20. Up yours Selfridges. These girls have been doing vintage properly for a good while now at Levenshulme market, Font Bar, Castlefield market and music festivals. They’ve scored a regular slot at NQ bar Terrace on the first Saturday of each month, this one will be their first market of 2014 - the lazy scamps, it’s ruddy March.
Visit the G&T blog and see some of their pieces here.
She reasoned that should her mouth stay open long enough, someone would have to pour gin in
Talk: The Cultural Politics of Exploitation Cinema, Cornerhouse, Sat 1 Mar, 3pm-4.30pm
This discussion, part of the Jamie Shovlin: Hiker Meat exhibition, brings together experts to discuss the issues surrounding the production of exploitation cinema: low-budget, over-the-top, offensive and invariably naked and covered in claret.
The panel will discuss the issues surrounding the production of exploitation cinema. From concerns about its approach to representation, to questions of how audiences consume these films, the panel will explore exploitation cinema from across the world, including Europe and Central and Latin America – then they’ll have a chainsaw death match and cannibalise each other.
That was the last time he'd honk at a lady in the street
Event: The Wedding Fete, The Old Parsonage, Stenner Lane, Didsbury, Sun 2 Mar, 11am – 4pm
We've been told that people are still insisting on marriage. Fascinating. We're also told the wedding season draws close. We’re not even sure what that means, well the men don’t (tad sexist that, but we really don’t).
Should you feel the need to remortgage your house and sell an ear in order for everyone to get fat and pissed from your pocket, then you’d better get planning - these things are now military operations. Blame OK magazine. And Pippa's arse.
The Wedding Fete will have a multitude of suppliers including dressmakers, florists, make-up artists, photographers, chocolatiers, cakemakers, hatmakers, decoraters, cheesers and stationery makers. Because what’s a wedding without a personalised pencil? Nothing, that’s what.
FREE entry. To pre-register or for more info email info@keepcalmmarryyon.com or call 07732531910. More info here.
He suddenly realised... he was only three
Theatre: The Seagull, The Lowry, Until Sat 8 March, daily 7.15pm (matinees on Sat 1, Thur 6 and Sat 8)
Anya Reiss’s reimagining and Chris Honer’s production of Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov’s major play has been receiving rave reviews.
Reiss, just 22, is widely regarded as one of the most exciting young voices in British theatre, with a knack for extracting the veiled and often muffled intent of the teenager mind. She is, after all, not long past her own teenage years. Years spent getting into bother.
In The Seagull, a famous actress’ visit to her brother’s remote estate exposes the frustrated yearnings and ambitions of her family and friends. As her son puts much more than his self-respect at stake by trying to impress her with a play he’s written himself, others dream of love, the bright lights, and being able to escape their past.
The Seagull (he's not playing the seagull)
Event: 100 Day Countdown To Brazil, National Football Museum, Tues 4 Mar, 1pm-8pm
NFMThe 100-day long road to the FIFA World Cup in Rio de Janeiro will begin this Tuesday with a Brazilian bash at the National Football Museum in the Urbis building by Victoria.
To celebrate the occasion, the museum will be hosting an all day Brazilian bonanza with Samba dancing and drumming, Brazilian inspired food and drink, Capoeira (martial arts) workshops, free face painting for younger guests and all the museum’s popular Football Plus+ interactives will be free all day long for all visitors.
Visitors to the museum will also get the chance to see key World Cup objects including the 1966 World Cup Final ball, the Jules Rimet Trophy and Maradona’s infamous 'Hand of God' shirt from Mexico 1986. Git.
More info on the NFM here.
Film: The Breakfast Club, Dancehouse Theatre, Thurs 6 Mar, Doors 7pm, Film 8pm
The most angsty of 80s teenage angst films. This cult highschool film begins with five of the pupils in a prison-like library detention: Claire, the princess (Molly Ringwald); Andrew, the jock (Emilio Estevez); John, the criminal (Judd Nelson); Brian, the brain (Anthony Michael Hall); and Allison, the recluse (Ally Sheedy).
They start, each a stereotype of their prescribed caste, with not a thing in common. But find, as the day goes on, that they're not so different. They all think adults are utter bastards, for one.
Tickets £6 here. Drink: The Fitzgerald, Stevenson Place, Northern Quarter, opens permanently sometime in the late week, maybe
It doesn't get much more NQ than a bar that has been open sometimes, but mostly not, down an alleyway from another alleyway and up some stairs under one big lightbulb. It's easier to miss than a penalty kick with a blue whale in goal.
The Fitzgerald is named after F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby and the soul reason that 90% of themed parties are now Gatsby parties. The girls shall be flappers, the boys will be bow-tied, the cocktails shall be prohibited but flowing and the furniture shall be of the 1920s - so don't sit down too hard.
Follow @TheFitzgeraldNQ here
Let's be honest, the blokes weren't mortified
Real Life: and a green sweaterComedy: Real Life by Ben Power and Ben Kewin, Gorilla, Thurs 6 Mar, 7.30pm
Both graduates of the MMU School of Theatre. Both called Ben. Funny world.
A new comedy show that will help you understand things that can sometimes be hard to understand (you know, feelings 'n' that) unless you've seen a play about them.
Tickets £8.50 here
Follow @David8Blake on twitter
