Proud Mary

Thursday, 5 November 2026, doors 7:00 PM

Tickets from £28.50 + booking fee

Noel Gallagher called them a cross between the Stones, Neil Young and The Band, then put his money where his mouth was and made them the first band he ever signed to his own label. That's not a press release line dug up by a promoter. That's a man who has heard everything deciding this one was worth backing.

Proud Mary formed in Manchester in the late nineties, took their name from the Creedence song and very little else from anybody. They came out of the same working class tradition as The Smiths, James, The Stone Roses and Oasis, but without the appetite for world domination that usually came with it. The plan was simpler. Make proper rock and roll, with the passion of rhythm and blues, the reach of space rock, and the directness of mid sixties pop. Songs first, swagger second, everything else a distant third.

Very Best Friend arrived in April 2001, produced by Noel himself. The album, The Same Old Blues, followed that June and went top ten. What came after was the sort of run most bands would trade a limb for. Touring with Oasis. Ocean Colour Scene. The Black Crowes. Paul Weller. Neil Young. Ryan Adams. Stereophonics at A Day at the Races in Donington and Cardiff, in front of tens of thousands. The Guardian summed the whole thing up as classic rock songwriting delivered with inimitable, timeless bad-boy swagger, which is about as neat as anyone has managed it.

The second album, Love and Light, came in 2004 with Andy Rourke of The Smiths on bass, and a main stage slot at the Isle of Wight Festival behind it. Proper Manchester company, on a record that still holds up.

For this show, frontman and songwriter, Greg Griffin brings the band.

If you're planning to come, book early. Nights like this tend to go quickly once word gets round.

Twenty five years on, they've never stopped, and they've done it their own way, releasing on their own label. The band finished a UK tour this year and put out two new singles, Rabbit Hole and Thunder and Come Around Again, both recorded at their own studio in Palma, Mallorca. There's a full album finished and due for release, with a tour behind it in 2027. So this isn't a nostalgia night with a greatest hits set and a nod to the past. It's a working band with new songs under their arm and somewhere to be next year.

Which is exactly why a room this size is worth it. Twenty five years of songs, stripped to their bones, played close enough that you can see the fretboard and hear the pick hit the string. No barriers, no big screens, no bad seats.

Bonfire Night, in a small room in Headless Cross, with a band Noel Gallagher backed before anyone else would. There are only 40 tickets for this one, and once they're gone, they're gone.

Tickets coming soon.