CityLife

Big Hands

IF it didn’t exist, someone would invent it. Like some web 2.0 random generator of bar review clichés – “best kept secret”, “indie hangout”, “Manchester institution”, etc – Big Hands has over the years come to fill a void the city probably never knew existed, much less needed addressing.

This unassuming former nurses’ hangout (not in the recent past, we hasten to add) with about as much curb appeal as a GP offering free rectal exams has somehow become the muso hangout of choice for a whole city.

Its proximity to the Academy venues obviously helps, making it a convenient post gig drinking den for touring bands – it is sandwiched unobtrusively between a florists and a takeaway a mere stagger south down Oxford Road from the student’s union.

But that’s not the full story. Big Hands has a music policy of its own, it doesn’t just buy into whatever band happens to be passing. It has its own live music or DJ on every night and it showcases them in a teeny-tiny, dive bar den space that looks like a cross between a down-on-its-luck CBGB clone and a Spanish opium den.

It is packed with music posters, random retro furniture and busting with an amount of personality that is inversely proportionate to the size of its dancefloor. And that’s part of the charm.

What gives Big Hands the edge over other bars of its ilk is the obvious love its owners lavish on it: not evidenced through the shabby chic aesthetic but more subtly, in the superb selection of bottled beers, the always excellent music policy and the atmosphere found within.

Now is the time to visit Big Hands, while the student massive is clearing out and there is the chance of elbow room at the bar or if you’re lucky on the sofas in the window – the perfect vantage point for watching the world go by.

Arrive midday with a paper, order coffee, finish the paper, move to beer and let the evening unfold.

Big Hands, 296 Oxford Road, M13, (0161 272 7779).

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