Blackpool Live launches at the Empress Ballroom this July, with Feeder headlining the first in a brand new live music series inspired by one perfect day out at the same venue twenty years ago.
Ask any music fan of a certain age in Blackpool about the Empress Ballroom and you’ll get a story of a gig they still measure every other gig against.
Blackpool Live founder Mark Lippmann has one of his own. Back in 2006, he travelled over from Hazel Grove with 15 mates to see Arctic Monkeys play the Empress. They spent the afternoon on the rides at Pleasure Beach, wandering the prom for ice creams and fish and chips, then piling in for the show before catching the last train home. Twenty years on, he still counts it among the best days of his life.
Blackpool Live was built on the idea of handing that exact experience to a new generation of visitors – and for locals, it’s a welcome return to seeing big touring gigs on the doorstep.
“People always ask what the best gig you’ve ever been to was, but when you think about it, you remember so much more than the band,” says Mark. “Blackpool is uniquely placed to create those experiences.”
That vision becomes a reality on 24 July as Blackpool Live, a brand new live music series presented by Scruff of the Neck, kicks off with Welsh alt-rock stalwarts Feeder headlining, with support from The Futureheads, A, and Balancing Act.
Feeder have sold more than seven million records since first troubling the charts in the ‘90s, and a with a s setlist built around bangers like Buck Rogers, Just A Day and Feeling A Moment, the gig is a safe bet for a memorable night of singalongs.
Feeder’s the first of seven major headline shows coming to the Empress Ballroom, with an ambition of bringing a total of 17,500 music fans to the legendary venue this summer and autumn. The Fratellis, The Enemy, Cast, Doves, The Pigeon Detectives and Happy Mondays are all confirmed to headline between now and November, backed by a supporting bill spanning three decades of British indie and alternative music. Sleeper, Echobelly, Inspiral Carpets, The Slow Readers Club and We Are Scientists are among more than 27 acts playing across the series.
It’s a welcome return to serious live music programming for a venue that’s played host to more competitive dancers, pigeon fanciers and darts players than rock stars in recent years. The venue has played host to a handful of live gigs in recent years but the Empress’s roll call over the decades reads like a who’s who of rock royalty, and some of those gigs have become local lore.
The night the Rolling Stones played in 1964, the crowd got so rowdy the band were banned from playing in Blackpool for the next 44 years. And over the decades the Empress has hosted everyone from Pink Floyd and Queen via Oasis, Radiohead, Pulp, The White Stripes and the Stone Roses, whose famous 1989 gig there was later released as a live album in its own right.
Blackpool Live looks like the start of a welcome return to the Empress’s musical heyday, with a new generation of music fans about to start collecting their own gig stories from the legendary venue.
Feeder headline the Empress Ballroom, Winter Gardens, on Friday 24 July, with support from The Futureheads, A, and Balancing Act. Tickets are available via Scruff of the Neck.
