Home Run Soul Club - The Glamour of Manchester
There was a time!!...
…Gene Chandler enthusiastically announced, ‘when he used to dance’! Where that dancing took place was never specified, but it was probably Chicago, Illinois…
Industrial cities are often alike. They’re usually cold and wet, characterful, and steeped in culture; culture that is often formed around the city’s residents, and, in a circular way, their own relationship to that environment. In this regard, Manchester and Chicago are very much alike. These are also cities of soul and dance!
Manchester’s latest soulful city-centre offering is Home Run Soul Club. Launching on Saturday April 8th, Home Run Soul Club sits beneath the Grade II listed building of the Refuge Bar and Kimpton Clocktower Hotel on Oxford Street (M60 7HA). Entering through its own private entrance, you drop down into the belly of the 132-year old building into a newly refurbished basement club with low ceilings, wooden dance floor and an impeccable bespoke sound system. There is even a little nook for sales boxes!
And if you want a little break, or somewhere to go beforehand, maybe try the public bar or winter garden.
Formerly the Palace Hotel, the home of the original Manchester European Soul Weekender (that lineup, that ballroom!) co-organised by Home Run residents, Liam Quinn, Gary Bratchford, are just one small part of the soulful connections that makes Home Run Soul Club a product of the city. Over the past 15 years the Home Run Soul Club Resident DJ’s have all had a hand to play in what the Manchester soul scene has sounded and looked like. Beat Boutique founder Liam Quinn, along with two of its residents, Mangas and Evans, helped oversee the growth and development of the Beat Boutique from progressive rare soul night to the city’s premier up-tempo / modern soul party, hosting NYC’s John Morales, Red Greg and Dimitri from Paris to name but a few.
Not just a club night, the Home Run team will host a live, warm-up radio session with their guest Djs on the day of the main event from 1-3pm, broadcast via Reform Radio and archived for future listens and downloads.
Photo credit: Hayley @readysetjet.
Home Run Soul Club is the combination of all that of which has informed it. A quarterly soul night with companion radio show & website, Home Run Soul Club will mix the UK’s finest and Europe’s best in an offering that will keep the basement venue dancing from 8pm through till 2am.
The Industries that give cities like Manchester (and Chicago) their identity, come and go, but they leave legacies. The same can be said for their respective music and club scenes. With a little touch of glamour and a lot of soul, Home Run Soul Club builds on these histories, and it all starts April 8th!
Tickets are available online at www.homerunsoulclub.com and on the door.
The 2023 Programme:
June 3rd 2023
Sept 9th 2023
Nov 4th 2023
Transport:
10 minutes walk from Piccadilly train station.
0- mins Oxford Road Train station (the station is opposite the hotel).
5 minutes walk from St Peter’s Square Tram Stop.
Regular buses from Piccadilly Gardens straight to the door of the venue. Info here. (little fact but possibly a myth,, Oxford Road is Europe’s most serviced bus route).
Street parking free from 8pm (as well as on single yellow lines!) otherwise the Palace Park NCP is best -Palace, Whitworth Street, Manchester M1 6NE
Hotels:
If you want to make a night of it then you have:
The Kimpton Clocktower, an IHG Hotel - Guest Reservations
The Holiday Inn Express (opposite the Kimpton) Holiday Inn Express Manchester CC - Oxford Road, an IHG Hotel - Guest Reservations
Great John Street Hotel: a new definition of lifestyle in Manchester 2 mins walk away
Hotel Innside Manchester, modern hotel in Manchester | Melia.com 5 mins walk away
Central Hotels: Holiday Inn Manchester - City Centre (ihg.com) 10 mins walk away
