The time has finally come for Courteeners to take to the stage for their massive summer homecoming gig, back in the fields of Heaton Park.
The Middleton rockers will be taking up the Friday night slot before Parklife kicks off, performing on the festival’s main stage.
The concert will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the band’s seminal debut album St Jude, back in the city where it all began.
Courteeners will be playing through that iconic debut in full, alongside all their biggest hits from their six studio albums.
It’s not the first time Courteeners – fronted by Liam Fray – have performed in Heaton Park. In fact, this is the third time they’ve gigged on this patch of home turf.
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St Jude was produced by Stephen Street and spawned anthems including Not Nineteen Forever, What Took You So Long?, and No You Didn’t, No You Don’t.
It recently broke records by reaching number one upon its release, becoming the album with the longest time between release and charting at number one in history – hitting the top spot a staggering 14 years, 9 months and 14 days later.
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Speaking about the special St Jude Heaton Park show, Liam Fray said: “They grow up so fast. Can’t believe our darling St. Jude is 15 next year.
Courteeners celebrating their number one album in Mr Thomas’s Chop House. Credit: Instagram @what_liam_saw
“Think it’s time for a celebration and we all know that great things come in threes….The Star Wars Trilogy, Sooty, Sweep & Soo and now, here we are, with the third instalment of ‘Courteeners at Heaton Park’. June 2015. June 2019 and now June 2023 …
“This time, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of its release we’ll be playing ST. JUDE (in full) PLUS (of course) THE HITS.
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“I can’t think of any better way to celebrate than to make the pilgrimage to Heaton Park with like-minded souls and lose ourselves like it’s 2008. And, because we’re good like that, we’ve remastered the original album.
“GOD BLESS THE BAND. GOD BLESS THE FANS. OMNE TRIUM PERFECTUM.”
Here’s everything you need to know if you’re heading to see Courteeners at Heaton Park.
Who’s supporting Courteeners at Heaton Park?
DMA’s. Credit: Publicity picture
This is massive – there are FOUR acts taking to the Parklife main stage at Heaton Park before Courteeners pop up, creating what’s essentially a mini Manc festival.
First up will be a DJ set from Katie Owen, who’ll get the vibes going from the second the doors open.
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Then you can sink your teeth into this lot…
Brooke Combe
Scottish singer-songwriter Brooke Combe will be the first live singer to hit the stage this Friday.
She’s a multi-instrumentalist with a seriously powerful voice, and is tipped for very big things indeed.
The Snuts
Indie rockers and festival favourites The Snuts are next up, showcasing songs from their two studio albums, including their debut W.L. which shot straight to the top of the UK Albums Chart.
They’ve supported huge names over the years, including Kings of Leon, The Kooks, and Louis Tomlinson.
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DMA’s
This Aussie three-piece will be back in town this week, showing off music from their latest album How Many Dreams? as well as their three previous records.
Their gigs in Manchester always have an air of a homecoming show about them. It doesn’t really make sense – they’re half-a-globe away from their actual home – but this bunch of Aussies have adopted that very distinctive Manc swagger, down to the waterproof parkas they all wear on stage.
It’s not looking good if you’ve not managed to get tickets so far – Courteeners looks to be completely sold out.
There are a few tickets floating around on resale sites, but make sure you’re buying from a reputable site and not about to get ripped off.
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What are the stage times for Courteeners and support acts?
Stage times are always subject to change, but this should be the rough times that you can stick to on Friday night.
Doors open 4pm
DJ Katie Owen – 4pm – 5.30pm
Brooke Combe – 5.30pm – 6pm
The Snuts – 6.20pm – 7pm
DMA’s – 7.30pm – 8.20pm
Courteeners – 9pm – 10.45pm
How do I get to Heaton Park?
Courteeners. Credit: Michael Clement
The area around Heaton Park is expected to be extremely busy for Courteeners, with around 40,000 people descending on the park for the gig.
This is TfGM’s advice if you’re one of them.
Metrolink
A six-minute service will operate pre and post-event to stops near the venue on the Bury line.
Please use Heaton Park for travel to the gig and Bowker Vale for travel post-event.
The last tram to the city centre from Bowker Vale will depart at 1.07am. While, the last tram to Bury from Bowker Vale will depart at 00.21am.
For the safe management of crowds exiting the concert, Heaton Park will close at 9pm on the Friday.
Buses and bus diversions
Due to the road closures and traffic around the site, a number of bus services will be diverted on Friday. Services 66, 90 and 94 will be on diversion all day on Friday, whilst diversions for services 41, 59, 135 and 156 will be implemented from 6pm until 2am.
If you plan on taking the bus, don’t forget that you can search your service and plan your journey on our bus webpage.
For more information about fares on buses in Greater Manchester, visit our Get On Board webpage.
Driving
There is a strictly-enforced residents parking only zone around the Heaton Park area.
All drop-offs and pick-ups will be directed to the Sainsburys car park on Heaton Park Road (postcode for sat navs M9 0QS).
If you have no alternative but to drive to the event, use one of 24 Park and Ride sites on the network and complete your journey by tram to Heaton Park or Bowker Vale.
What’s the expected setlist?
Courteeners have done a couple of warm-up shows before their Heaton Park gig, so we’ve got a bit of an idea of what to expect.
And yes, as mentioned already, you’ll get to hear all of that brilliant St Jude…
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Aftershow Kimberley Cavorting Acrylic Kings of the New Road Please Don’t No You Didn’t, No You Don’t Bide Your Time Fallowfield Hillbilly That Kiss Yesterday, Today & Probably Tomorrow How Come Smiths Disco It Must Be Love Are You in Love With a Notion? The 17th Hanging Off Your Cloud Modern Love Not Nineteen Forever What Took You So Long?
The best Manchester-based anime-style memes we’ve seen online as Ghibli craze takes over
Danny Jones
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Now, the internet can be used for a lot of silly and pointless things – you might argue us sharing our favourite memes every morning is a prime example of that – but we have to admit, the second we saw a Manchester-inspired Studio Ghibli image on social media, we were hooked.
If you have absolutely no idea what we’re talking about, there is a current craze that has taken over the internet, which has seen recognisable memes and images recreated in the style of the iconic Ghibli anime films, created by legendary animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.
Once you’ve found one, you tend to start spotting them more and more frequently, and in the case of the chronically online like us, we’ve been inundated with them for weeks now.
People are using AIto create them in various different contexts, but it won’t surprise you to learn that our favourite Ghibli/anime memes are those based around Manchester. For example:
Bloody hell, the internet really is brilliant sometimes, isn't it? 😂 https://t.co/virpFx60u7
As it happens, this was the first and perhaps still the best we’ve seen to date, but it didn’t stop us from falling down an animated rabbit hole looking for others.
To be honest, we didn’t actually have to do much searching ourselves as they’re absolutely all over the algorithm at the minute, and have been for a good month or so.
‘Ghibli memes’ may be an overgeneralisation of what is a rather specific and famed art style, but this ongoing flood of anime-style cartooons is being created by users giving prompts to ChatGPT, the increasingly popular large language model (LLM) and AI tool.
Designed with OpenAI software, the artificial intelligence chatbot can do everything from write extensive study notes and flash cards to fixing blurry images, writing computer code, entire essays and quite literally countless other things.
In this instance, people are just reimagining moments from the zeitgeist and famous memes in this style by feeding the image to ChatGPT, along with an ‘in the style of Studio Ghibli’ prompt.
One for the Blues…And the Reds.All of these images have been designed using ChatGPT. (Credit: Eleventh Minute/centredevils via X)
Pretty cool, right?
You’ll find that footballer Twitter (sorry, X*), in particular, is absolutely full of fan accounts recreating iconic club scenes in the Miyazaki art style, giving their favourite players big ‘Chibi’ eyes (another unique aspect of anime) and so on.
It’s all just a bit of a laugh, after all; even we here at The Manc put ChatGPT to the test back in June 2023 and asked it to design ‘the perfect day out in Manchester’ – to varying degrees of success, we might add.
As ever with machine-learning, the more information you feed it, the better the result and although we know these are original pictures being reimagined, it still goes to show just how impressive and varied AI is becoming.
We’ve also enjoyed some that aren’t necessarily Manc but are quintessential British humour or simply more universal memes.
Exhibits E and F…
Even after all these years, we feel like we still see this in some context at least once a week – and it still makes us laugh.‘What a sad little life, Jane…’Credit: brandsynario (via Instagram)/No Context Brits (via X)
Despite these memes riding a real wave right now, the Ghibli portrait fad is just that; there are plenty of other aesthetics being toyed with, too.
Actually, it already has, as we’ve now started coming across people making action figure versions of themselves and/or famous people, full decked out with accessories inside blister packs and everything.
On the other hand, many people are understandably concerned about what this means for artists and although there is no substitute for genuine human expression, whatever form that may come in, lots of people are railing against it as the possibility of AI-based pop music has been posited.
With that in mind, maybe the best twist we’ve seen is our very own Stanley Chow subverting the trend and doing Ghibli stuff in his equally iconic style. We’ll take these geometric gems over computer-generated imitations any day.
For now, it’s just a bit of fun and we confess we’ve got some light entertainment out of it, but the increasing possibilities being thrown up by AI in terms of art do pose a lot more complex questions.
We’ll finish with one final example because let’s be honest, there’s only really one thing on our minds at the minute – at least until the summer finally rolls around…
Let us know if you’ve seen any other fun examples and what you make of the whole Ghibli meme trend down in the comments.
LF System on headlining Amber’s for ‘The Drop’, dancefloor anthems and more
Thomas Melia
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Scottish DJ duo LF System are playing an intimate set in Manchester as part of ‘The Drop’, a special monthly event series for a very important cause.
‘The Drop’, sees the hitmakers joining two more greats, DJ Paulette and Turno, as headliners for this remarkable event all about raising awareness and funds for mental health in the music industry.
The mastermind partnership of Headstock and Skiddle, each event champions a charity which benefits including Music Minds Matter (Turno) and Nordoff & Robbins (DJ Paulette and LF System).
The first monthly set comes from the DJ duo behind one of the biggest UK club staples, ‘Afraid To Feel’, as LF System take over Manchester’s newest clubbing venue, Amber’s – who typically keep their lineups private – for an exclusive ‘Coffee Table Session’.
LF System, Conor Larkman and Sean Finnigan, outside their New York session venue.Credit: Supplied
LF System Interview
This event is in aid of Nordoff & Robbins: how important is this cause to you?
We feel like music should be enjoyed by. Anyone, no matter what. Nordoff & Robbins make that possible.
They help everyone, all ages through music therapy. It’s important to us that [this event] supports them. Everybody deserves a chance to have a go at music, it’s a great cause that allows people to have great opportunities.
You’re going to be playing Amber’s, which is one of Manchester’s newest clubbing venues, how are you feeling?
I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, so I just really want to get in there and experience it for ourselves.
It’s weird coming to Manchester at this time of year as well; we’re always here in winter, usually freezing and raining, so it’ll be quite nice to come down this April.
Amber’s nightclub has some very important rules, including a no-phone policy in order to bring clubbing back to its roots – how do you feel about this?
Oh, we’re all for that!
I think there’s been a bit of a problem recently, so anything that can be done to make clubbing all about the music and as immersive as possible the better. It’s about living in the moment. I think that’s a good thing.
I don’t think we’ve ever actually done anything with a no-phone policy before; somehow, they’ve always snuck them in. Exciting.
LF System’s Conor at a recent event in New York.The Scottish duo LF System, playing an intimate set in New York.Credit: Supplied
What can fans expect from your special set for the monthly music series ‘The Drop’?
It may be a bit different to what we usually do as it’s a coffee table session set-up, but there’ll definitely be good vibes and good music all night.
There’ll be a lot of unreleased stuff that we’ve been making recently, mostly from our new EP that’s coming, and it gives us a chance to play our new songs and see people’s reactions. So far, they’ve been good every time we’ve included them.
How come you’ve opted for a ‘Coffee table session’ rather than a huge rave vibe, especially considering how much your music gets crowds up on their feet?
We’ve never actually done a coffee table session in a club before, so that’ll be our first for us. It’s going to be electric and fresh.
You just get to showcase a lot more music than when what you do when you’re playing a club set, different BPMs.
[Coffee table sessions] still get people up and dancing, but it’s just a different type of night. It’s relaxed, happy dance music, you know what I mean? You don’t have, don’t have to go mad ‘fer it, just a nice chilled one.
As well-respectedDJs, it’s only fair we consult you on Manchester’s clubbing scene, so how would you rate the club culture and atmosphere in our city?
We always have a good time in Manchester and there’s always good crowds. It [Manchester] is just like that.
There’s a good culture to do in this city, so I think it’s a good place to bring this session too, and we’re looking forward to it.
It’s got a really rich history and you can always feel that when you’re there, it’s always a good time in any of [Manchester’s] different venues. Everyone always seems right up for it.
House music is known to improve people’s moods, and ‘The Drop’ is all about music and mental health, so to finish off, what’s your all-time favourite top three mood boosting house tracks?
Sean
‘Music Sounds Better With You’ by Stardust
‘Beautiful People’ by Barbara Tucker
‘In Love With You’ by The Paradise
Conor
‘Why Not?’ by Skate Bård
‘I Think I’ll Do Some Skipping On My Own’ by Sandy B (Opolopo Rework)
‘Night Walkin” by Mermaid S
LF System are bringing their bangers to ‘The Drop’ in Manchester.Spinning the decks just like they will at Amber’s in Manchester later this month at ‘The Drop’.
Daisy Jackson -
8th June 2023 
