We invited Halifax home birds, Manchester residents, and all-around stalwarts of the local scene, The Orielles, to fill us in on how independent venues have shaped their journey and indeed their career.
Dear Independent Venues,
We started playing gigs in pubs and clubs around Halifax, our first gig was at Arden Road Social Club supporting The Lovely Eggs. Michael, the promoter of our first show now owns and operates an independent venue called The Grayston Unity in Halifax which is a really nice pub / music venue where we launched our first album from in 2018!
When we started to get a bit older we tried to branch out, we played a lot of support slots in Leeds, Sheffield, and Manchester, Liverpool and York, we got to know bands in the area and got really interested in the local scenes that were built around these independent venues and what an active role these venues had in the musical output for the bands in those cities.
We played in places like The Great Gatsby, The Picture House Social, The Brudenell, Wharf Chambers, Deaf Institute, SOUP, The Castle, Sound Control, The Kazimir, and The Shipping Forecast as well as The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge.
Just before we got signed to Heavenly Records we were playing 3 or 4 shows a week at times. Traveling much further away down south and playing mini-tours of 3 or 4 days. Playing places like The Victoria in Dalston, Sticky Mikes in Brighton, The Louisiana, and Thekla in Bristol, we traveled up to Glasgow too. We should obviously give a massive shout-out to Mono, the bar / venue and record shop in Glasgow we make a pilgrimage to every time we’re there we always discover something new when we go in there and take away records to pour over at home!
Thank you!
Yours,
The Orielles x
As part of IVW, catch The Orielles performing at The Baths in Ipswich, on Wednesday 2nd of February!
Plus, you can watch their interview with The Big Jeff from IVW 2020:
