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Light Night - with copious amounts of beer
Art and culture till late this Friday. It's thirsty work, so here's a drink-stop tour
RIGHT across Europe, it's Light Night this Friday.
Museums and galleries throw open their doors for the evening and in the UK, nobody does it better than Liverpool – and not just because we're one of only a handful of UK cities participating.
The tireless Open Culture team behind Light Night have assembled over 90 special events. From 4pm, visitors can follow their own vibrant trail of light projections, exhibitions, performances, talks, walks, dance and more.
Organisers say: “It’s the perfect chance to meet friends and family to enjoy the relaxed after-hours atmosphere and rediscover Liverpool city centre - it’s a Friday night out with a difference.”
Now here at Liverpool Confidential we like our art as much as the next person, but we like our beer even more. Which is why our social correspondent, Freeloader, goes to so many private views.
So here we have compiled a Light Night trail, where the nearest bar is no more than a spitoon away, should it all get too much.
4.00pm– Bold Street Light Night Street Market, L1 4NW - Enjoy arts, crafts and food stalls.
Beer opportunities: Leaf? Bier? Tabac?
Or, try The Shipping Forecast, Slater Street, where, if you are dressed to their exacting"on-trend" standards you might be allowed in. Never mind if not: you can have an entertaining intercourse with the bouncers about the finer points of Rolf Harris outside.
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White Star5.00pm – Reflections of Liverpool: A Pop Up Photography Exhibition by Mark McGowan at Wongs Jewellers, Chicago Building, Whitechapel, L1 6DS.
Remarkable photographs married with live music from a string quartet surrounded by beautiful jewellery and complimentary champagne! Watch out for Brouhaha’s International Carnival launch too!
Beer opportunity: The White Star, Button Street. Friday gets VERY lively in there.
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5.45pm – Polaroid Pop-up studio at the Open Eye Gallery, 19 Mann Island, L3 1BP. Get snapped vintage style with friends and family, then enjoy the Open Eye Gallery, one of the UK’s leading photography spaces, and the only gallery dedicated to photography in the North West.
Beer opportunity: The Liverpool pub, James Street – because all the nice girls and boys love a sailor.
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Head Of Steam6.30pm – Razzle Dazzle at the Tate Liverpool, Albert dock, L3 4BB. A special event featuring music, dancing, workshops and film inspired by 1920s-1040s Hollywood glamour. Visitors are encouraged to dress up with a prize for the best dressed person. Themed cocktails and food in the café.
Beer opportunity: In house, or The Pump House, Albert Dock, if you must.
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7.30pm – The Factory, Arena Studios & Gallery, 1st Flr, Elevator, 27 Parliament St, L8 5RN. From Andy Warhol to Damien Hirst, artists are becoming reliant on ‘art workers’. Arena artists present a unique one off event The Factory where visitors create their own piece of art with assistance from their own ‘art workers’. #playbaltic
Beer opportunity: The Brewery Tap, Stanhope Street, is not to be sniffed at. Indeed, it can get a bit ripe in there.
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8.00pm – Adult Youth Club at Camp & Furnace, 67 Greenland St, L1 0BY.
Beer opportunity: Abundant, in house.
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8.30pm – Threshold Lite present Things to Make & Do, Elevator Bar, 27 Parliament St, L8 5RN.
Beer opportunity: Abundant, in house.
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Hop on the Free Light Night Bus that stops near Elevator Bar and get off at the Metropolitan Cathedral.
Cambridge Pub9.40pm – Candle Lit Labyrinth on the Front Piazza plus inside:OUT kaleidoscopic light projections of the Cathedral's stained glass by Andy McKeown on the rear altar at the Metropolitan Cathedral, Mount Pleasant, L3 5TQ.
Beer opportunity: The Cambridge, Cambridge Street.
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Stumble back on the Free Light Night Bus and get off at Lime St.
10.15pm – Late Night Ceildh at St George's Hall, St George Place, L1 1JJ. Open to all with toe-tapping Southport based band, Gallimaufry. No previous experience required and refreshments available!
Beer opportunity: Abundant, in house. Or Head of Steam, Lime Street.
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Camp And Furnace11.30pm – The Light Night Debrief Disco at Camp & Furnace, 67 Greenland St, L1 0BY. Continue your LightNight adventures, throw some shapes on the 90s disco dance floor. #playbaltic
Beer opportunity: Abundant, in house.
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1.00am – Light & Sound Party at Academy of Arts (entrance moved for the night to Wolstenholme Sq). Kazimier Krunk Band on at 1am, ClinIc DJ’s till 4am. 1st come 1st served, show your Light Night programme at the door.
Beer opportunity: Abundant, in house, or the excellent Mello Mello, Slater Street.
*LightNight, 4pm – Late , Friday 18 May 2012. Liverpool city centre. Visit here for the full programme or pick up a leaflet from venues across town.
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39 comments so far, continue the conversation, write a comment.
The Shipping Forecast bouncer asked me and my friends where we had just come from last time we tried to get in. When my friend asked what it was to do with him, a young chap with that odd bearded look told him he couldn't come in because he was too aggressive.
Unfortunately the bouncers allowed in some scruffy bloke who, in the midst of deafening, floor-shaking 'music' from the band upstairs, set up what disc jockeys call "da dex" and proceeded to batter our eardrums with an even louder racket last time I was in The Shipping Forecast.
Wouldn't waste my time when there's the much better Peacock.
Does anybody know if the White Star serves pints of Titanic White Star?
The Shipping Forecast is a disgrace. They don't like letting people in at weekends if they look over 40...and it's supposed to be a music venue Presumably therefore they wouldn't let in Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker, Nick Cave etc? The bouncers are ridiculously rude and aggressive. Terrible, terrible place
Yes it does Paul and yes you are completely right about the Shipping Forecast Peter
The Shipping forecast is strictly for whoppers.
Thanks for that Darth. We've now embedded the helpful link you originally posted into the piece. It's not meant to be any reflection on the Light Night by the way!
Finally! A drinking guide to Light Night. Foolishly i've been trying to work out my own based on the exhibtitions but this is so much better than i could manage!
This might be a very useful guide, LC, but once again it is making very difficult reading and I am looking at my wife's bottle of Chanel No 5 in a way that I had forgotten
Superdrug mouthwash is cheaper.
Glad you like it Ed. I thought it might shed some light on the clientele of the corporate indie Shipping Forecast, and their pret-a-porter, itchy sphincter cool.
The Shipping Forecast bouncers are an amusing rabble. Ive been both allowed in and not allowed in. Out of the two I had the better night when I wasnt allowed in. Who wants to drink all squashed up with student blerts anyway?
So what kind of music do they play in there in a place called The Shipping Forecast?
Will I get in wearing my Fair Isle slipover and my Viking helmet? In short I’m ready to Rockall.
You're a very slipperly customer, Mr. Sole
You know... Rock Lobster, Cod save the Queen, the whole of Never Mind the Pollocks, Sole Man, Helter Skater, I am the Walrus...
Hang on, a Fair Isle slipover and a Viking helmet would probably be just the ticket!
I bet they crapped themselves when they opened up with their big corporate indie backers, and then realised what Slater Street is actually like. Whoever leased the building to them is to be congratulated
I confess that apart from the ridiculous noise level in there the only problems I've had with the place is that it's one of those city centre bars that only employs young, female, amateur bar-staff who cannot serve customers in the correct order.
There's alway a crowd of despairing-looking prospective drinkers at the bar watching the erratic service and thinking how to get their friends to agree to go elsewhere for the next drink.
Actually, they are all boys, but it's an easy mistake
Well they definitely won't let me in with my name!
Is it true what they say about skate, incidentally?
It is an odd location for a place with such pretensions, yes. Maybe when you also own Reading Festival, 30 % of Glastonbury Festival, The Astoria, Christ knows how many radio stations in the US and around the world etc, then the cost of a lease on Slater Street doesn't add up to much? I hope they're paying a lot!
I asked a girl behind the bar a perfectly normal question about a beer they had on, and she told me to eff off then refused to serve me. When I asked to speak to the Duty Manager, two doormen turned up and told me to leave. The manager denied it all the next day, and said I'd been abusive to his staff.
I believe it's true about Skate, yes. In fact there's a video on Youtube. It's instructional, rather than a demonstration though.
Do you think we should embed an instructional video about skate into this piece as well, Darth?
I thought it was best not to, but decide for yourself. Youtube: fishermen demonstrate how to have sex with a Skate.
Suppose we can say goodbye to the idea of the Light Night people including this in their press cuttings now
Ooops!
I feel like I have just walked in on a Derek and Clive sketch
Thank you somebody at last has highlighted these twats with their ironic beards, stupid thick rimmed face furniture, flat white coffees and instagram. What we need is a good war.
I hate them all too Colonel. I think my main problem with them is one they have in common with most young people now though. The first generation of kids who were taught not to have anything at all to do with strangers have come of age, and they are, unsurprisingly, rude and antisocial. It'll only get worse.
Hey - it's 'Because They're Young'!
- Though even I would pistol-whip self-styled 'creatives' who use "vibe" to describe something.
Hope it doesn't rain.
I think I'm banned from the shipping forecast for nicking a chip off the servery! The place is dreadful but where else can you get
real ale after 12 apart from the swan?
Pshaw! The "Late Night Ceildh at St George's Hall" mentioned above was chucking out by 10.30. We got there at 10.35 to be told that it was all finished and the Mersey Morris Men were leaving so you know the beer had stopped flowing.
Mr. Scott,
You used to be able to get real ale after midnight at that big pub on Berry Street - is it no longer open?
It was called The Masonic/Trader Jack's/Black Horse & Rainbow/The Brewery/The Metropolitan et al.
Sex with skates, eh?
Bah!