It is a truth universally acknowledged that any student making the pilgrimage to Manchester must be in want of a good music venue. Allow me to present: Gorilla and The Deaf Institute.
On a mid-September evening, I made my way to Gorilla, a restaurant, bar, club, and music venue nestled under an old railway arch. Glass-fronted and on the cutting edge in the way Mancunian venues so often are, Gorilla has been welcoming music lovers since 2012.
Bar manager, Dominic, embodies a genuine nonchalance, mirroring the venue itself. They strode purposefully, leading me through the wood-panelled restaurant and into the smoky concert hall. Lighting technicians were setting up for the night ahead (a Freshers’ Week neon rave), and crates of alcohol were piled on the bar.
Continuing through a warren of dark stairways, we arrived at a warmly lit, scarcely furnished green room. I sat on the black leather sofa and wondered which musicians had sat there before me.
I knew that recently it had been The 1975, who played at Gorilla last February in aid of War Child UK– an affair Dominic described as “absolutely mental”. Then their label mate, Pale Waves, played an acoustic set on the 24th of September. This is notably in contrast to their headlining of The Neighbourhood Festival in October.
“We have been getting a lot of underplays recently,” mused Dominic.
(Note: for those unfamiliar with the term, an underplay is when an artist with the capacity to sell out a bigger venue deliberately chooses to perform at a smaller one).
“Labels know we have a reputation for being able to pull off these shows without difficulty”.
Perhaps part of the reason Gorilla is so adept is in its history. In the 1980s, the building housed The Green Room– an experimental art, comedy, and theatre venue that saw the likes of Steve Coogan and Caroline Aherne take to the stage. It lay dormant for years until Gorilla opened in September 2012, but maybe some of its star quality was preserved in the brick and dust.
Since its opening, Gorilla has seen artists like Sam Fender, Blossoms, and Foals perform in the early days of their careers. Kylie Minogue played there in 2018; she wanted to experience intimate crowds and performed at Berlin’s infamous Berghain in the same run.
Yet, despite this success and reputation, the COVID-19 lockdowns hit Gorilla hard. In July 2020, it was announced that both Gorilla and The Deaf Institute were to close. In the same month, Tokyo Industries rescued both venues.
Speaking to The Guardian, Tokyo Industries’ founder, Aaron Mellor, said:
“It is vital venues like Gorilla and The Deaf Institute are kept alive. The cultural fabric of our city centres depends on venues like these”.
Dominic felt similarly about the significance of grassroots venues, noting that they have recently had many conversations on the topic. They spoke with conviction and gave a poster-worthy summary:
“You will not have bands playing at the Co-Op [Live] if you do not have bands playing here. You will not have bands playing at the AO Arena or headlining Reading [Festival] if they do not play here. The gig economy in Manchester looks after small venues because that is how you get to fill the large ones”.
In May, the indie band English Teacher performed at Gorilla. In September, they won the prestigious Mercury Prize for their debut album, This Could Be Texas, staving off competition as fierce as Charli XCX’s culturally ubiquitous BRAT.
English Teacher are playing at the O2 Ritz in November, just across the road from Gorilla. Crossing that road seems an obvious metaphor for career progression– on one side sits a 550-person venue and, on the other, sits a venue almost three times bigger. This metaphor lends itself to tantalisingly glamorous images of grit, hard work, success, and stardom. A gig at Gorilla sits deliciously close to the beginning of it all.
“I am constantly excited by the gigs that are being put on here,” said Dominic, “it is nice to see bands pass through here before you are stuck, jostling in a 1000-cap venue for a decent view”.
Further down the road, across from Manchester Metropolitan University, is The Deaf Institute– a music venue and club. One cold evening, a week after speaking to Dominic at Gorilla, I made my way there.
A solitary man stood in the doorway, first in line for The Howler’s gig that night. The wind was bitter and doors would not open for at least another hour. I admired his commitment to getting a good view of the up-and-coming East London trio.
Ten minutes later, I got my first introduction to their music. Their soundcheck started thudding through the ceiling as I was speaking to Kerris, the bar supervisor who has worked at Deaf for just over a year. At first, she let the music play, but as it got louder, Kerris excused herself to turn the speakers down.
“It is alright when it is just in the background, but that was getting obnoxious,” she joked as she sat opposite me again. I have been trying to find the song I heard on Spotify ever since.
We were in a leather booth, in a little room off the side of the first-floor concert hall. It felt dormant. The ceiling was high, the brick crumbling, and a thick velvet curtain obscured the window. A chandelier hung next to a fireplace.
When I asked Kerris what makes Deaf so iconic, she expressed that it is the building itself that truly stands out.
“It is a little bit dirty; I think people like that. The walls downstairs are covered in kiss prints… People just kiss the walls. It is little things like that. It has got character, that is what I like. What other club has a fireplace with logs in it?” she shrugged.
Deaf certainly has character: the wooden tables are sticky; the bathroom walls are graffitied with layers of Sharpie scrawling, all of which offer some iteration of ‘I was here’; the wallpaper is florid and loud, the speakers stacked against it louder.
The building is Victorian, gothic, and Grade II listed. It was built in the 19th century as Manchester’s Adult Deaf and Dumb Institute (note: ‘dumb’ is an offensive term in this context today). This name is still etched into the austere stone frontage, and there is a memorial plaque from 1877.
Since 2008, the building has been a music venue and club space. It quickly gained a reputation as a must-do in the Manchester gig circuit and has seen countless small artists over the years. Amongst these, many have gone on to be hugely successful: The 1975, Cigarettes After Sex, Florence and the Machine, HAIM, and Kate Tempest, to name a few. Johnny Marr of The Smiths relaunched his solo career with a residency at Deaf in 2011.
Kerris’ favourite act she’s seen at Deaf is the Midwest emo band Michael Cera Palin, who performed there in July. Unlike larger venues like the AO Arena, the 260-person venue fostered a strong sense of connection– Kerris fondly recalled dancing with strangers, all of whom were “on the same level of feeling”.
As well as a notorious music venue, Deaf is also home to a host of club nights. From nu-metal, Taylor Swift, and post-punk to hyper-pop, Lana Del Rey, and indie rock, the events cater to a wide range of people.
“If you are queer, alternative, sad, or a bit funky, Deaf is the place for you,” said Kerris.
In speaking to her, Kerris’ enthusiasm for The Deaf Institute was clear; she ran away with rapid trains of thought and asked me to remind her of questions when she took a breath. She was engaging, her passion for the place infectious, and I started to see the venue how she does: a bubble of warmth and community in an often impersonal city.
Kerris repeatedly reiterated that she considers the venue a “queer safe space”:
“As long as people are coming and having a good time, that makes me happy. I like making space for people who feel like they do not have anything else”.
It’s this notion of carving out spaces and fostering artistic community that has historically made Manchester what it is. There are venues like Gorilla and Deaf all over the city. Both Dominic and Kerris implore students to get out there and get involved in a scene that is deeply Mancunian, exciting, and relentless.
