There’ll be records playin’ across the nation…but will there be a chance for folks to meet?

by Kev McManus, Head of Liverpool UNESCO City of Music, Culture Liverpool

Just when you are feeling a bit down in the dumps, suffering the post -Christmas January blues, along comes Independent Venue Week to make life seem a little brighter again. This year IVW runs for a week from 25th Jan celebrating and championing the venues that are the lifeblood of the UK music scene. This national initiative highlights local venues that perform the vital dual role of giving artists somewhere to play early in on their careers while also ensuring that music fans have somewhere they can get to experience the thrill of live music at its very best. It is also a tribute to the hard work of those noble souls who keep these venues open through hard graft, clever management, shrewd bookings and unfeasible amounts of enthusiasm and genuine passion for live music.

It is hard enough for venues to survive in ‘normal’ times but the pandemic has dealt a devastating blow to the whole of the live music industry. Recent data has shown that employment in the live music sector has fallen by 15% and without any certainty on when venues can re-open and when audiences can come back the future remains uncertain. Just look at the practical issues facing a small venue. If you are a club with say a capacity of 250 and you can only open with social distancing then there are a number of issues to overcome. Your capacity may be reduced to say 70 people which means less ticket income, less bar take, high staff costs to ensure everyone is safe and probably a smaller fee for the artists to reflect the smaller numbers. On top of that, both audience and artists will be in a strange situation in a half empty room which is bound to impact on the sense of occasion and atmosphere that usually accompanies the best gigs.

The last 12 months haven’t just been a huge blow to the venue owners, their staff, and the artists who would normally play there. But it has also meant no work for the huge layer of people who make live music happen. Tour managers, lighting and sound engineers, production services, venue security, tour bus operators and everyone else in the supply chain have effectively had all their work stopped and have no idea when they will work again. Campaigns like #WeMakeEvents have been attempting to draw attention to the plight of the highly skilled people who make up these supply chains and who unfortunately slip through the net of most of the available support.

I’ve been talking regularly throughout the lockdowns to a lot of venue owners/operators and despite the numerous issues they face they have shown incredible resilience in such difficult times. Organisations like the Music Venues Trust, Night Time Industries Association have provided great support throughout and a number of local venues have received grant support through the likes of the Arts Council and our own Music Fund.

Normally I would at this stage be urging you to get out there and support your local live music venue this week and throughout the following months but clearly that isn’t possible this year. But there are other ways you can show support through various crowd funders that are out there, paying for a ticket for a streamed gig and showing support for the efforts made by local venues to put something on for Independent Venue Week. Future Yard, for example, have lined up a couple of cracking shows to bring a bit of light to these dark winter nights.

Independent Venue Week gives us another opportunity to dig out a blog written a couple of years ago by our UNESCO City of Music Head, Kevin McManus, when he took a look at the strength of Liverpool’s venue sceneand had a nostalgic look back at famous and infamous venues of the past. So please note not all references will be current and a couple of the venues named have now closed — Constellations, Sound, and the Zanzibar — further illustrating the precarious existence of our beloved venues.

“I’ve spent a good chunk of my life from the age of 15 in venues and clubs in Liverpool. Unfortunately my dedication to this cause hasn’t resulted in certificates, qualifications or even any kind of discount for gallant service or loyalty. (A bit disappointing really because I even got given a certificate for swimming a width of Bootle Baths when I was 10. With hindsight I now realise this was the school’s way of trying to boost the esteem of those of us not good enough to swim an actual length of the pool ). But what it has given me is some of the best nights of my life, long-standing friends, great memories, and it also makes me feel qualified to offer an opinion on the best and worst of venues past and present.

What follows isn’t intended to be a comprehensive listing by any means so apologies if I offend anyone by omission. For example, I’m only touching occasionally on dance music in this blog but I’ll revisit that another time because it’s a vital part of the overall Liverpool picture. But just to be really clear, this is a personal view dictated by my own experiences, my occasionally wonky memory and to some extent by my own musical likes and dislikes.

To my mind a thriving independent venue scene is a good indicator of the health of a city’s music ecology. So it’s good to report that at the moment Liverpool’s appears to be in a state of pretty rude health.

That’s not to say that ensuring that this stays the case isn’t without significant challenges. For example, Kitchen Street recently voiced their concerns about the impact a nearby new development could have on their operation. This is now hopefully moving towards a satisfactory conclusion for the venue. But like cities all across the world small venues in particular are always at risk when a city is going through regeneration and the subsequent expansion of physical developments and city centre living. But we as a city need to do our bit too and make sure that we understand the challenges venues face. We need to support what makes Liverpool special and protect and grow the live music sector so we can justifiably call ourselves a Music City.

The venues themselves are doing their bit by working with each other and co-operating because they know they face similar challenges and that they are stronger together. This is typical of a really positive collaborative music culture at the moment.

On the venue side of things there are lots of intriguing developments taking place at the moment. Jimmy’s has been open for less than a year but has already established itself as a key element of the city’s live music offer. Run by good people, not only does it have a perfect small basement venue with a great sound system but it’s street level bar is also a good place just to hang out and have a drink.

When I originally wrote this blog the wonderful people from the Kaz had just made a significant change at the Kazimier Gardens right in the heart of the city centre. They have to be careful about their noise levels with live music there because while it is a great bar it is also an open air space near to residential developments. So in order to overcome this problem they came up with the brilliant idea of turning the bar’s stock room into a small venue. The new micro venue, which after much thought (and the disappointment of branding consultants everywhere) they decided to call Stockroom, typified the Kaz approach of just getting on with things, opening less than a month after they came up with the idea.

The people behind this particular venture are well used to dealing with the issues that can confront venues. They cut their teeth just up the road from the Kazimier Gardens with the brilliant and much lamented Kazimier club. Some of my favourite gigs of recent years took place there. It was in many ways the perfect place to see live music: it just had that certain something that makes a venue special. It also helped that it was run by people with a passion for what they were doing and with real respect for the gig going community. Unfortunately the regeneration of that part of the city centre meant they had to close although they did manage to go out with a real bang. This same development also brought about the closure of Nation, the spiritual home of the legendary club Cream.

The Invisible Wind Factory is the latest incarnation by the team from The Kazimier.

Sad as this was, scenes evolve and the Kaz crew upped sticks and took the brave step of moving outside the city centre to the then unfashionable old docks area in North Liverpool. They set up a new venue, The Invisible Wind Factory, in an old warehouse there. Building on the success of the old Kaz this has quickly become a Liverpool favourite and gig goers are now used to the short walk or taxi drive from the city centre. Substation, their smaller venue within the larger space, is an ideal space as they term it for “communities, experimenters and dwellers of the underground.”

Near neighbours North Shore Troubadour have now added to the offer in that part of the city with their regular club nights. The first ‘proper’ gig there by one of my 2019 favourite newcomers, Chinatown Slalom, was a recent highlight. More recently Meraki have started operating in this part of town and quickly established a great reputation for their programming before Covid brought a temporary halt.

As ever with Liverpool it is an evolving picture. The displaced Cream organisation as well as huge club nights Chibuku and Circus have become more nomadic in their use of venues. They often now stage events in that same dockland area, either using mammoth temporary structures or the old Bramley Moore warehouse.

There’s a great example nearby of how an area can be quickly transformed. Only a decade ago the Baltic Triangle area was a similarly ignored and a pretty much culture- free area. Now it’s awash with venues large and small.

The number of great venues in the Baltic makes it perfect for festivals and first up this year at the beginning of May will be the return of the long running Sound City Festival, now established as taking place across multiple venues in the Baltic. In the past Psych Fest, Threshold, Liverpool Music Week, Positive Vibrations Reggae Festival the Baltic Weekender and Liverpool Disco Festival have all taken over parts of the Baltic to great effect.

District (formerly the Picket) was an early pioneer in the Baltic and suffered in those early years when people weren’t accustomed to going to the area for drinks or music. Thankfully the venue, managed by the maverick Liverpool legend that is Jayne Casey and her wonderful partner Eric, has survived the perils of being an early adopter and has a clear place in the area’s music ecology. Favourite memories there include three very different gigs: Elvis Costello playing with Allen Toussaint, the magnificent chaos of a Black Lips show, and a truly memorable Justice Tonight gig with the legend/hero that is Mick Jones joined by The Farm, and Pete Wylie. It has a key position in the city too as a venue that regularly brings quality reggae gigs to Liverpool courtesy of the Positive Vibrations team.

Other venues like 24 Kitchen Street and Constellations are now well established driving forces in this area although the latter’s future (and its brilliant smaller space Best Before) remains uncertain, although it is likely to be operating until at least autumn 2020. Both are real labours of love, driven and guided by people who have put heart and soul into these ventures. In fact both sets of owner/managers also pretty much built the venues with their own hands before building up loyal audiences. If I was 20 again these are definitely amongst the places I’d be hanging out in. Kitchen Street is my favourite type of venue: a small, sweaty place with loads of character and a brilliant sound system. They book what they believe in and this makes for an exciting, diverse, innovative and genuinely inclusive programme. Passion for music and a real desire to look after artists and audiences seep out of a venue like this. The Kitchen Street team are also behind another great multi venue festival in the shape of the Baltic Weekender.

Just up the road in the city centre is the Jacaranda or Jac, famous since the days of The Beatles and nearby is its new sister venue Phase One which is a great, intimate venue. Parr Street’s Studio 2 has always been a firm favourite and for me a storming Independent Venues Week performance there by Idles a couple of years ago takes some beating. They are a band that are impressive in any setting but in such a small space they were really in your face and nothing short of mindblowing.

Just outside of town we have the Olympia where I’ve had a few great nights over the last couple of years. It is really positive to see that this amazing historic theatre space is now having regular gigs. Its attracting some big names and bands love playing there.

Gigs in unusual spaces seem to be a real specialty of the city. Even the museums have got in the act with special gigs by the likes of Mick Head and OMD at the Museum of Liverpool, while over the road the British Music Experience has hosted recent memorable shows by She Drew The Gun, The Charlatans, and Pete Wylie.

We shouldn’t forget the gigs that take place in the city’s parks and other public spaces. There’s a long tradition of gigs in Sefton Park through Larks In the Park and Earthbeat and this tradition has continued with the wonderful LIMF and Africa Oye festivals for years now. Over on the Wirral in Birkenhead Park they had a wonderful gig by the Lightning Seeds in summer 2019 and had a stunning line up set for 2020 which obviously had to be postponed. 2019 also saw the debut of the Future Yard Festival which was really impressive and loads of fun. A great line up, a sunny weekend, and some amazing venues. The recently opened Future Yard venue will I am sure go on to be a huge success.

Of course for most people Liverpool is still most famous for the Cavern. Thanks to the good people of Cavern City Tours it is now a flourishing venue again as well as a must see place for visitors. Of course a lot of the music is Beatles related but they have plenty of original music there too. Big names like Arctic Monkeys and Adele have done shows there and a certain Paul McCartney popped in recently for a high profile but intimate gig. One of my favourite gigs of 2019 was a blistering Mysterines set they performed on the Cavern stage.

There were limited venues about when I was growing up so I saw lots of my early gigs at larger venues like the Empire Theatre. My first ever gig was Elton John at the Empire when I was about 12 and I can still remember it. My sister took me and made sure I didn’t fall off when I was standing on the chair during the many encores. In fact I still have the programme. (No apologies I’m just sad like that). I also managed to meet Elton earlier that day — me and my sister chased his fancy car and managed to grab him and get his autograph when he got out at the Adelphi hotel. (I very much doubt old Elton will be staying at the Adelphi again when he stops off in Liverpool on his final tour). But I also saw some of the punk/ new wave giants there like The Jam, Buzzcocks, the Stiff tour with Elvis Costello, Ian Drury, Nick Lowe, and the brilliantly bonkers Wreckless Eric. I saw the Banshees play there with support from The Cure (whatever happened to them eh?) and Subway Sect. A couple of the Banshees left at the start of the tour so The Cure’s Robert Smith filled in on guitar for the headliners too.

My all time favourite venue has to be Eric’s. When I was about 15 punk exploded into the world and changed my life. I quickly moved on from Elton John and was able to see all my new musical idols up close and personal in the little bit of heaven that was a sweaty, dirty cellar on Mathew Street. I saw everybody that mattered there: The Clash, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, Magazine, The Slits, The Cure, Undertones, The Banshees, Wire, XTC, The Specials and local bands like the brilliantly chaotic Big In Japan, OMD, the Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes. It was dirty, smelly, small and sweaty but completely brilliant and life changing for me. The jukebox and the DJ’s at Eric’s also contributed to your musical education. Roger Eagle, the club’s promoter was a massive reggae fan and via the influence of Roger and John Peel I became a lifelong fan too.

It was also memorable for me for other reasons too. My first serious relationship began there when I asked a girl from school to come to a Cramps gig with me one Saturday night. Anyway she agreed to accompany me (and my mates came too because they all loved The Cramps and I hadn’t quite got the hang of the dating thing at that stage of my life). Fortunately she loved the extreme weirdness of The Cramps (and as a bonus my mates weren’t too annoying).

A week after The Cramps gig the club closed. Its now 40 years since that famous closing night but Eric’s maintains an almost mythical status in the history of Liverpool venues.

Around this time I started to get to know a few musicians too which meant we went along to see their gigs. A lad we knew was the drummer in a band called Pscycamesh. I remember us all going to the see them play in the Third Room at the Everyman. We felt really grown up being in such a cool place at the tender age of 15/16. On reflection we probably acted/looked like the young idiots from Bootle that we were. We felt important anyway because we knew ‘the band’ and we were out in town at this strange but great bar. The headliner was Pete Wylie playing his first gig with Wah! Heat, which on the night featured Julian Cope on keyboards. They played a storming set in the tight confines of the Third Room. That night has always stuck with me and the Everyman Bistro remained a favourite haunt for another 30 years or so.

At that stage of my life me and my mates were obsessed by the rock and roll bible that was the NME. So it felt bizarre that a few years later, in the early 80s, that this august journal was publishing reviews of mine. And they were even paying me for the privilege — suckers!

Eric’s had closed by then and from memory a lot of my live reviews from this time were of gigs that took place at the Warehouse. This was a dedicated live music venue on Fleet Street and had gigs on almost every night. The nights that stick in my memory are gigs by the likes of Dead or Alive, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the Icicle Works (who I said in my review were a bunch of ‘hippies’). A mysterious fire brought a premature end to the Warehouse’s life.

Other small venues like The Masonic pub on Berry Street had live music most nights but the lack of regular venues meant some unlikely places were called into use. My favourite was Mr Pickwicks which was exactly like you would expect a nightclub in the early 80s to look like. It had a circular sunken dance floor but bizarrely it also worked really well for gigs. My first ever NME review came from there and featured two local bands Black and Send No Flowers. I’ve still got my ticket for a Pale Fountains gig there which was in the shape of an old fashioned luggage label. On that night and other memorable occasions like an early Orange Juice gig the venue was fabulously renamed Plato’s Ballroom.

There were a couple of other places around this time to see live music occasionally like the Pyramid Club, or the Left Bank Bistro on Mathew Street.

The Pyramid Club on Temple Street was also the home of Club Zoo. This was the product of the maverick thought processes of Teardrop Explodes’ front man Julian Cope and his even bonkers manager Bill Drummond. Just as the band were enjoying real chart success with singles ‘Reward’ and ‘ Treason’ they decided to not bother touring in order to capitalise on this new found fame as any sane band would do. Instead they chose to do a residency in Liverpool at the Pyramid Club, which would be rebranded for the duration as Club Zoo. I saw a good few of these gigs and anyone who was there will be able to tell you tales of the chaotic brilliance of those glorious nights.

The Royal Court was definitely my favourite of the larger venues. It was one of those big, old atmospheric spaces which crackle with electricity when band and audience are on song. I saw loads of big names there like U2, REM, Gill Scott Heron etc but the ones that stick in my mind are by local returning heroes like The Bunnymen, The Farm, The Coral, The Zutons, and Elvis Costello. Playing a sold out Royal Court show or two was a real statement that the band had arrived and the crowds always welcomed them back with a real fervour.

I missed out but other people have told me how great a venue Liverpool Stadium was earlier on in the 1970s. The Stadium was primarily a boxing venue and was a big old hulk of a building around St Paul’s Square. The only time I remember going there was when my Dad took me and my sister to see wrestling one Friday night. We saw the giants of the ring that Friday night- Les Kellett, bad guy Mick McManus, and even bigger baddy Giant Haystacks. Obviously while I was watching the wrestling I missed out on the fact that the Stadium was hosting gigs by bands like Led Zeppelin, Roxy Music, Bowie and Captain Beefheart, all booked by the same Roger Eagle who went on to set up Eric’s. It was worn out when I went there and was finally put out of its misery and demolished in the 1980s.

During this late 80s/early 90s period I tended to be at gigs or clubs nearly every night because of my work for various national music publications. So I ended up in places like the gothic underground dwelling that was Planet X, run by the legendary Doreen (who had worked with Roger Eagle at both Eric’s and The Stadium). This was a world inhabited by the likes of The Boo Radleys, Dr Phibes, Scorpio Rising, Mr Ray’s Wig World, Spontaneous Cattle Combustion et al. It was a club that inspired real devotion from its audience, although not being particularly goth inclined it wasn’t somewhere I generally hung out unless I was there to see a band. I was once meant to review The Wedding Present there for NME. At the time the band were still a big deal and this was a secret gig in a very small venue. Their press person told me they would be on stage at 10. Me and the photographer took her at her word and played pool in the Hanover pub over the road until 10. We walked in only for Doreen to tell us the band were on their last song. The venue was so rammed full that nobody else was getting in anyway so the band thought they may as well go on early. I spoke to front man David Gedge after they finished the gig. In a rare candid moment I owned up to having heard only one song and made the generous offer to fabricate a review based on the one song I’d heard and how I’d imagined the rest of the gig had gone. This seemed perfectly reasonable and very doable to me. I had their set list and everybody knew what The Wedding Present sounded like anyway, so how hard could it be for a superb wordsmith like myself to conjure up an accurate impression of the gig in 800 words or so? Unfortunately, David Gedge is a very honourable man and looked pained at the mere suggestion so I backed down from what I thought was a generous offer on my part. The result was that I then had to leave a message for NME Live Editor Steve Lamacq explaining why he wouldn’t be getting a review faxed to him on Monday morning. What made the whole thing even worse was that the gig was on Friday Feb 14th. Yeah, that’s Valentines Day! And somewhat surprisingly my then girlfriend didn’t want to spend the evening in a cellar full of goths. So in one short evening I had managed to seriously annoy my partner and mess up a review. A memorable night.

There were regular gigs at a few venues on and around Hardman Street around this period too. Hardman House was one, as was the Haigh Building student venue where I saw the likes of Lenny Kravitz, The Charlatans and Galaxy 500. I dimly remember support slots from Radiohead and The Cranberries there too.

The Picket was the main one in this area and another place where I was almost a resident. I had a strong affinity for the place as I’d worked at the Trade Union Centre where it was based and its manager was an old friend. As well as reviewing bands there I also did the occasional bit of DJ’ing at the venue, did the door a few times, and even did the lights once. (I actually didn’t know how to operate the lights but the bands on stage didn’t seem to notice.). It was run with real love, was a great place to play and lots of Liverpool bands cut their teeth there. I had so many glorious nights there watching local bands like The La’s, Pete Wylie, The Tambourines, Shack, Space and Cast. I saw an incredibly loud Happy Monday’s supporting The Farm there, and Travis played just before they took off. There was also the famous occasion when the venue manager had to ask the audience at an Ian Prowse gig not to jump up and down because the floor was going to give way! I was there the day The La’s Lee Mavers sound checked for about 4 hours with a hired in PA. He then decided a half hour before show time that it wasn’t suitable for The La’s particular vibe that day. He went ahead and did the gig anyway with the Picket’s much smaller, less sophisticated PA.

The NME also gave me some, strange and exotic assignments in places like Paris, Birkenhead and Bootle. I was sent to a heavy metal club in Birkenhead called Stairways to interview and review an American shock metal band called GWAR. Suffice to say it wasn’t a place I felt at home in (the club that is, not Birkenhead). Bootle was far easier because it’s where I’m from and at that time still lived. I was actually born off Marsh Lane in Bootle and Marsh Lane Community Centre bizarrely hosted the first Bunnymen gigs after there was a split with singer Ian McCulloch. They did three brilliant shows with new vocalist Noel. The Bunnymen were a huge deal at the time so the gigs attracted loads of interest and brought visibly confused fans and media from all over the world to deepest, darkest Bootle.

That Concert Square area isn’t somewhere I’d choose to go out now but in the late 80’s/early 90s there was a club called Macmillan’s which I loved. Incidentally, for those of you who like a bit of romantic colour, it was also the place where I met my wife. It was a proper basement club where everyone involved in the music scene seemed to hang out. During that period I pretty much lived in that place and as well as the regular club nights there were occasional gigs there. Standout shows that I can remember are an early DJ set by A Guy Called Gerald as well as nights when Shack, and The Farm played. The Farm gig annoyed some of their old fans because it was the first time they unveiled their new dancier sound featuring sequencers and all that modern music technology. Some people just don’t like change.

Another of my regular haunts around this same time was the Mardi club just off Bold St. It was more of a club venue than for live music (and hosted G Love for a while –to my mind still one of the best club nights ever) but on one memorable occasion The Stone Roses played a gig there not long before they really took off.

A couple of years later on and in the same area of town was Le Bateau club on Duke Street which I still think of with enormous affection. It may be apartments now but it is one of those places that will always have special memories for me. I was DJ’ing there when Oasis played their first Liverpool gig. They weren’t meant to be playing but Digsy’s band, Smaller were. The Real People were helping Oasis out at this early stage of their career and they asked me if these Manchester lads could sneak on and do a 20 minute set. Fortunately I agreed and using Smaller’s gear Oasis delivered a set of raw and ferocious brilliance. Two of my favourite club nights also took place in Le Bateau in the form of the Voodoo and Liquidation. Really different nights but loads of great memories from them both.

A few months after that night at Le Bateau I was stage managing a gig just over the road at the Krazy House when Oasis played another storming set as support to the Real People. The Krazy House was a great live music venue in those days. In the late 80s there was a regular Thursday night gig there promoted by Marc Jones, who has gone on to run the successful Medication night for the last 20 years. At the Krazyhouse I saw amazing early gigs put on by Marc including Suede, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, and local lads The Tambourines to name just a few. I’m pretty sure drinks were 2 for 1 so that helped too. Marc has recently returned to the Krazyhouse (now renamed Elekrik Warehouse) with his Medication club night.

We have had lots of small venues that have come and gone over the years. The Lomax in Cumberland Street was a great place in the early 90’s for touring and local bands. Oasis and Verve gigs stick out particularly in my memory. A decade or so later Korova opened on Fleet Street. I had an office in the building above so subsequently spent far too much time in Korova. A great bar and musicians hangout with a small venue attached. Revo was the promoter and he was brilliant at picking acts early in their careers to play in this tiny venue just a few months before they really took off. It is another venue that people felt a lot of love for.

The magnificent St George’s Hall is another occasional gig venue. The Bunnymen’s famous Crystal Day gig was staged there. I’ve seen them countless times but that one still stands out. (Although at the opposite extreme I also saw them do a secret gig in the back room of the Monro in the same sort of period of their career and that was equally brilliant). Sound City 2010 hosted a storming set from the Zutons at the height of their fame in the gorgeous confines of the Hall’s Small Concert Room. Now that really is a classy gig.

The Hall’s plateau has also been used to memorable effect for live music performances. I remember the 1996 gig that was put on by the old County Council as a final act of defiance against a government that was putting them out of business. There must have been an audience of 40,000 watching a line up headlined by local lad Pete Wylie. And who could forget The Wombats and Ringo Starr performances that were seen all over the world as part of the Capital of Culture opening ceremony in 2008.

That’s Liverpool: music everywhere you turn. The sign of a real Music City.”

Kevin added a final closing note to this old blog:

I know I am really fortunate compared to many people at the moment but like everyone else I’ve found the last year really hard at times. I really miss seeing my large, bonkers family for one and I miss the everyday trivial chat and banter with colleagues in the office. And I know this seems incredibly trivial given what is going on in the world and the problems many people are dealing with every day but I do really, really miss going to gigs.

As I said at the start of this blog live music has been a huge part of my life since I was a teenager. My love of music and in particular of live music has shaped large parts of my life — friendships, relationships, and even my career — so to not be able to go out and see bands has been really weird. Looking back now I think the last couple of gigs I saw in the week or two before lockdown were those talented young Wigan upstarts The Lathums at the Arts Club and the old maestro himself Elvis Costello at the Olympia. Both great gigs but also great nights because of the sense of community and celebration that you have at all the best gigs. Seeing great live music with others and hanging out with your mates — it sounds so simple but there really isn’t anything better and I cant wait for it to come back.

Kev McManus, Head of Liverpool UNESCO City of Music, Culture Liverpool