Cafe Mambo at The Albert Hall 2

Just before lockdown I dropped into The Albert Hall in Manchester for a Cafe Mambo night, featuring a plethora of brilliant house music singers and DJs connected to the Ibiza-based brand. 

Long after lockdown was lifted, a mate of mine told me about a night again at The Albert Hall that his group was going to, and invited me. Doofus here forgot to check the details. I looked at the event listings for the club and spotted another upcoming Cafe Mambo night, forgetting to check the date he’d mentioned. I just assumed that would be the one (he and his group I know as house music fans) and bought a ticket. 

It quickly transpired they were booked onto the Trance Anthems night scheduled 2 nights later (tonight). I’m not a massive trance fan, although the line-up – including Sash, 4 Strings and Rui Da Silva- is a decent one. Buuut.. I’m not shelling out another £40 when Albert Hall wouldn’t refund me the ticket I’d bought. Standard Matt Tuckey error. I planned to just lone-wolf it. 

Thankfully, 2 other guys – good friends from men’s support group Andy’s Man Club - had bought Cafe Mambo tickets too. This group keeps on helping me out in a number of ways. 

So we met up in Brewdog, then took a look in Blues Kitchen, a fairly new live music venue on Quay St, in the old Walkabout building. The band were good, but the DJ beforehand gave us cheese and the clientele were standard Peter St chavs. 

After a long but fast queue we made it inside the club by 11:30pm. Albert Hall, a giant Grade II – listed Wesleyan chapel in the middle of the city, is adapted with a stage, lights, lasers and an incredible sound system. Bumped into a few familiar clubbing faces from over the years. Good people. 

 First set of the night: Julie McKnight Singing Diamond Life

  and Finally

 

Roger Sanchez took to the decks after this. I repeat myself a lot. Memory difficulties. 

 

 Rounding off proceedings, Todd Terry.

 

 

Great music and atmos. Let’s do it again! More on the Insta story.