March 2010

Welcome to Band on the Wall's Archive.

‘This place is a landmark and its history is epic’ – Adam Poppitt

Band on the Wall, previously the George and Dragon, has been part of the history of Manchester for around 200 years and has been a music venue at least since the 1930s.

Almost all of the thousands of music performances over the years went unrecorded, undocumented and un-notated. Lost in time. Our archive seeks to ensure that, from now on, all will not be lost.

AV Recordings

Music and the musicians are at the heart of the archive; and contemporary audio-visual recordings of performances are its core.

From March 2010, our archive will make available on-line video footage of selected performances, made since the venue’s reopening in September 2009. These will include:

The reopening gig by Mica Paris and the Julian Joseph Trio (both Mica & Julian are Honorary Patrons of Band on the Wall)

• Bugge Wesseltoft
• The Cheaters
• Edward II
• Swati Natekar
• The Bays
• Denis Jones

All of the artists have granted permission for the performances to be available as streamed excerpts and, from time to time, shown on the screens at Band on the Wall. Many more video clips will follow online.

History

While the building of this archive of contemporary recorded performances will remain our priority, we also will be expanding the written history of the venue. Already some of this history is described in this archive. Our current work concentrates on the 1975-85 decade, and the updated story for this crucial period in the venue’s survival and development will be added to the archive’s history page later in 2010. Subsequent work will take in the past 25 years, including the roller-coaster story of the building refurbishment scheme, completed in September 2009. We also welcome information about the venue’s earlier history.

We also plan to transfer various existing (pre-2005) recordings (audio & video) to digital formats and, where appropriate, make them available for streaming online.

Our archive also encourages input from individuals and organisations – whether materials such as print, photos, or audio or video recordings, or simply anecdotes from the venue’s past. 

Education

Our view is that the entirety of the archive is, in the broad sense, educational. In late 2010 we hope to launch specific archive-related education activities for the public.

This uniquely evolving archive is supported over five years by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Manchester City Council.