Carl Cox & Friends @ Albert Hall

Legendary house music producer, DJ and fellow Oldhamer Carl Cox played at Manchester's Albert Hall last night. He played after a warm-up by Eats Everything and Jon Rundell as part of Transmission: Sound from the Second City, a series of events at the Peter St venue. 

 

The hall- a renovated church- was rammed by 11pm and the music was great. The audience- 18-25 mostly- seemed at first subdued by other club's standards, with a lot of standing and watching as opposed to actual dancing. The people in the upper level took a little time to loosen up. My team- suffice to say- did not act with restraint in that manner. We were there to rave. One of us even turned up in a top hat and a monocle, because, well, why not. We stayed mostly in the throng of it on the church floor, a stone-throw between the stage (the altar) and the bar (suffice to say, a new fixture).

It's really hard to shoot video in Albert Hall due to the lasers and giant LCD displays messing with the Xperia P's focus. Are other phones better for this scenario? Mine didn't come out well at all. A quick Youtube search for “Albert Hall Manchester” reveals a mixed bag in terms of video quality but features some big name DJs and bands.

Did you go last night? Did you happen to look up? On the church's ceiling there's a strip of semi-transparent plastic. People were walking on it. Technicians? Ghosts? Special effects? I was driving, for the record, so nothing in my system clouded my judgement.

Below Albert Hall, there's a unit previously housed by nightclub Brannigans. When Albert Hall opened as a venue in 2013 the area was seating space for clubbers to break from continuous dancing. The bar's interior hadn't been altered much at all, at that point, from its previous incarnation- seating and fixtures of the bar were still intact, although not stocked or prepped for use. Last night I found the area had been simplified somewhat. No longer the chillout room it was being used for,  The bar area had been stripped back to the concrete making it unrecognisable- the carpets, the seats and the décor all gone- but this space made for a perfect secondary stage with the DJ booth at the back of the room. This lower level was also more spacious with slightly quieter music, so a good area to find friends and catch up before heading to the main stage.

Also, bucking the trend for Manchester venues: in Albert Hall you are allowed hats. FUCK YEAH!

Top night all-in-all. Spent most of it dancing.