Merrion

Not the blip I had planned, but I was walking down Merrion Way on the way to a gig when I noticed that the lower building (old Yorkshire Bank building) is being demolished from the rear. So, for posterity…

Apparently, there are a few buildings planned for the site: another student accommodation tower and a new events/conferencing venue which will back onto the Arena (which sits immediately  behind these buildings). Work on Yorkshire’s tallest building, Cirrus Point, continues to the rear.

The gig was good: Knats, a young jazz band from Newcastle who I’d heard played by Gilles Peterson on 6Music a few weeks ago, and were out promoting their first album. They were an impressive 5 piece (t, ts, d, p, b), playing a mix of their their own compositions, some tunes from jazz greats (like Joe Henderson’s Black Narcissus) and a nod to their Geordie roots with a version of Mark Knopfler’s Going Home. It was a youthful audience, partly helped by the support band, Fight the Giant, being made up of jazz students from Leeds Conservatoire who had brought along loads of their mates. Also, a new venue for me: Headrow House, basically a bare room (150 capacity, no seating) above a bar. I had a brief chat with the band at the merch stand afterwards, reestablishing my Geordie credibility from my twelve years living on Tyneside :-)