SNUGSIDIES: FREE GIGS IN WIGAN’S MUSICAL DESERT

Most little towns are comatose on a Friday night. Apart from the pubs and social clubs filled with the old boys who trade turns playing staff and punters, the streets are sleeping.

But not Atherton. On the first Friday of the new year the road is aglow. Restaurant Edison bulbs hum over name signs, bar doors slam open for business, and music – the noise of a soundcheck – thumps down the nook of a cobblestone ginnel. It’s down here, on the year’s inaugural weekend, that Atherton’s The Snug will urge the town’s first proper night out in years.

The project is called The Early Doors Club, a move to create something of a nightlife in the Wigan borough in those pre-drink hours between 5 and 8 p.m. You know how some places don’t have access to good-quality food? They’re called food deserts. Well, Wigan is a music desert. Not many original bands play out here. And so, four venues, spread across Atherton, Tyldesley, Leigh, and Wigan will be feeding the artistic hunger for the first few months of 2024 – for free!

Rachael Flaszczak founded and runs the place. She grew up in Hag Fold and never looked back, but she’s stuck with Atherton her whole life. And to her, growing music in the area is a life-long mission. “I was fed up of going into bars and watching cover bands; making money off other people’s songs. They’re really good, so why aren’t they doing their own stuff?” she says.

The Snug has saddled the burden of Atherton’s artistic growth for the better part of a decade. The town is hardly known for music. It’s hardly known for much at all. In fact, we’ve had writing on that very topic in this magazine. The old boys still go on about when The Beatles played Formby Hall – a venue that the council pulled down in 2017 and a building the community still grieves for. It doesn’t go unnoticed that The Snug opened the same year.

Athertonians love the place of course, but it’s not without its charm. “Ava-wank,” as Joe a regular, whose about five drinks in puts it. It’s a funny town without much of its own recognised identity, overshadowed by nearby Wigan and Bolton, not much belonging to either.

But there’s an excitement that feels bigger than the town’s border during the opening Early Doors Club gig. For this first night of shows, the main act, Bobby Lee, has come from Leeds. Two of his fans have travelled from Derbyshire to come see him play. Black Brunswicker, the support act, is originally from Chicago. Atherton rarely feels this wide-reaching.

Lee and Brunswicker do an excellent job at expanding the town’s palette. I highly doubt many Athertonians have heard guitar pedal drone and jangly psychedelic instrumental music before, but by God they have now. The vibes are pleasant, and there’s an assortment of ages in the 30-40 people dotted around the place.

Whether the locals like the music is somewhat besides the point. It’s about getting the town moving. Everyone – from the artists to the technicians – are paid from funding, so the tickets are free, and it’s about convincing people to stop moaning and rock up. As Rachael puts it: “It’s free because it’s so hard to get people to buy tickets for someone they’ve never heard of.”

Time will tell if the snug-sidised gigs will bring in the much-needed footfall to Atherton and beyond, but it’s hard to be a cynic. To be in my hometown, in a genuine music venue, joined by a crowd of music lovers (there for a proper gig!) is an experience that I never expected to have in Atherton.

These little shows are what musical careers are built on. Small, intimate things where bands can find their footing and hone their craft. “The first gig I ever went to was James at G-Mex in 1993 and the support act was Radiohead. I’ve seen Kings of Leon as a support act in Blackpool,” Rachael says.

Nobody can guarantee Atherton will have the next Radiohead, but the town will give it a good fucking go.


You can read more about The Snug over at The Big Issue and more about The Early Doors Club here.