40 years – that’s how long Simply Red have been putting out hit after hit and helping to build Manchester’s legacy as one of the world’s greatest musical cities.
They’re often overlooked when people put together a list of the best bands from our city (they’re not even on our own Top 30 list which is, quite frankly, a huge oversight on our part), but on this Saturday night, back on home turf and celebrating four decades, it’s hard to deny their impact.
This 40th anniversary tour was announced absolutely ages ago (the Co-op Live didn’t even exist yet) and you can feel that anticipation simmering in the audience.
It’s not exactly a gigantic production or build-up before Simply Red take to the stage – the music playing through the venue speakers just sort of turns off at 9pm on the dot and 20,000-odd people sit together in awkward silence until Mick Hucknall shows up a while later.
A VT of a young Mick in 1985 plays as he walks out.
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“I want to be a great singer” says VT Mick.
And as present day Mick launches into the bluesy Sad Old Red, he proves beyond doubt that he has achieved just that.
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His is a distinctive voice and one for the ages, especially here in his hometown.
“Thank you for creating me, Manchester,” he tells us, to rapturous cheers.
Simply Red on stage at Co-op Live in ManchesterSimply Red return to Manchester on their 40th anniversary tour
The rest of the band are mostly lined up neatly on one platform, in tight session musician style – brass, percussion, keys – only breaking free to perform the odd clarinet solo, while their frontman sashays across the rest of the stage in an incredibly snazzy jacket.
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The setlist is in loosely chronological order, which means it’s not long before Simply Red lure everyone onto their feet for Money’s Too Tight To Mention, their breakout 1985 single.
The hits all have similar effect – we sing so loud to If You Don’t Know Me By Now that he accuses us of coming after his job. For Stars, everyone flings their arms overhead and belts it out as best we can.
Fairground is like a very tame carnival, with whistles and maracas in the percussion section, and a slutty little samba step from Mick.
Holding Back the Years is a really, really boring song to end on though. There, I said it – someone had to.
It’s a grateful and engaged crowd at Co-op Live – there are couples dancing in the aisles, groups of pals shimmying, parents and grown-up children looking nostalgic (if you took a snapshot of Block 113 you’d see a mother and daughter wiping away a tear to For Your Babies… oh yeah, that’s me and my mum).
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Simply Red always sell out arenas in this city, their city, and probably always will. See you at their 50th?
Tickets for the remainder of Simply Red’s tour are on sale HERE.
Featured image: The Manc Group
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Ticket requests are now officially open for Harry Styles’ one-night-only Manchester gig
Emily Sergeant
The time has come – the ticket request system for Harry Styles’ one-night-only gig in Manchester is now live.
In case you hadn’t heard, it was announced on Wednesday evening after much speculation that Harry Styles would be making a return home to Manchester for a one-night-only ‘intimate’ gig at Co-op Live to celebrate the release of his fourth studio album next month.
Styles is set to share Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally with the world on Friday 6 March – and it’s that very same night he’ll be taking to the stage in Manchester.
Although little is known about what to expect at the gig, the poster for the event does state that there’ll be a ‘special performance of the album’, so it seems fair to say that Manchester will be the first to hear the new set of songs in full live.
And if all of that wasn’t exciting enough as it is, the tickets are only £20 per person.
But, of course, there is a bit of a catch, as this isn’t your regular online queuing up for tickets scenario, this is a ‘ticket request’ system instead.
So, like us – and literally every other fan in the vicinity of Greater Manchester and beyond this week – you’re probably wondering what a ‘ticket request’ system is… what does it look like? How does it work? Basically, what the heck is it? Well, we’ve done a bit of digging around to get to the bottom of it so you’re not left too much in the dark.
According to Ticketmaster’s website, if an artist is running a ticket request, they’ll invite fans to request tickets so you don’t have to compete in a first-come, first-served sale.
This means you can take your time to review the available options and request the right tickets for you.
All you need to do is tell Ticketmaster which shows you’re interested in, the type of ticket you want, and your payment details. Then, if the tickets you request can be fulfilled, your card will be charged and you’ll get emailed instructions to access them in the Ticketmaster App.
Unfortunately, as much as we’d love it to be the case for everyone, submitting a request doesn’t guarantee you tickets – it really is just luck of the draw.
To request tickets, you’ll need to follow these three simple steps:
Select which shows you’re interested in and the type of ticket you want
Add your payment details
Harry Styles ticket requests are now live / Credit: Johnny Dufort (Publicity Picture)
Ticketmaster will then send you a summary email that details the tickets you’ve requested. Your card won’t be charged at this time, but they may charge a temporary £1 authorisation to your card to validate your request.
A maximum of two tickets per person can be requested, which has been set to allow for as many fans as possible to get tickets.
Now, here’s the crucial part – you will need to submit your request for tickets while the window is open until Sunday 8 February at 11pm GMT. After the request window closes, you’ll get a second email by 11:59pm GMT on Tuesday 10 February confirming whether or not your request has been fulfilled.
All that’s left to do now is provide you with the link here and send you on your way… oh, and may the odds be ever in your favour.
Featured Image – Wikimedia Commons
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The story behind Sâlo: the rising Georgian-born Salford artist set be one of the region’s next stars
Danny Jones
We always love stories of people moving to Manchester to be more creatively engaged, but tales of entire families relocating here for a better life and art being born out of it is something truly special – and besides her obvious talent, that’s what has attracted us and plenty others to Sâlo.
This up-and-coming Salfordian artist may have been born around the border between Eastern Europe and Western Asia during a particular fraught time for her country, but she’s been raised and moulded like so many of us by this city’s rich music culture and wider artistic heritage.
She came to the UK with her family as a baby, with her parents fleeing poverty and lingering friction in Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 90s, and their journey as asylum seekers eventually brought them here to the North West.
It was clear from a young age that Sâlo (short for Salome) had a gift for the piano, but it was when her family moved to the Greater Manchester area that her own interest in genres and styles began to develop. Here’s a little snippet of her recent performance at the stunning Stoller Hall.
This short video was taken from her feature in a recent episode of Manchester: Unplugged, the web series by StreamGM that launched just last year and spotlights local songwriters.
Honing in on one of her newest releases, ‘Set Me Free’, which taps into that pure love for the keys.
While this clip shows a stripped-back version of the fully-fledged electronic studio version, with production playing a key role in defining her sound, she blends everything from classical music and jazz to neo-soul as well as drum and bass.
You hear the phrase ‘genre-bending’ thrown around a lot these days, but if this mid-20s star in the making isn’t the epitome of that term, then we don’t know who is.
Speaking more about her background in the short documentary film, which aired on YouTube this week, she talks about her first memory of visiting Forsyth Music Shop in Manchester city centre, and the inspiration behind the track in question.
You watch the Sâlo episode of Manchester: Unplugged in full here.
Detailed in the description of the newest edition of the online show, “Classically trained from the age of four, Sâlo’s journey runs through some of Manchester’s most important music spaces”, including time spent at the RNCM and Chetham’s School of Music and more.
As for the tune itself, not only do the lyrics revolve around a difficult patch in a personal relationship – this being one of the first times she felt like she’s fully opened up and not held back on letting people know what she’s speaking about – but it’s also the first track she’s produced and mixed entirely on her own.
Painstakingly mastered from a small studio at home, she almost “fell out of love” with the song altogether, but getting back to that simple joy of playing piano helped revive her passion for it.
With a stunning voice, natural musical talent when it comes to her instrument, and a great blend of different analogue and digital influences, Sâlo is definitely one to watch moving forward.
Daisy Jackson -
28th September 2025 
