City centre bar ended up hosting big weekend stars' afterparty

BBC RADIO 1 DJ GREG JAMES DESCRIBED THE SLATER STREET BAR AS "ONE OF THE BEST PLACES I'VE EVER BEEN" 20:37, 29 May 2025Updated 20:38, 29 May 2025 A city centre Irish bar ended

up hosting some of the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend crew for an unofficial afterparty one evening after their work in the city. Durty Nellies on Slater Street boasts live music, live sport and

DJs, and is popular with Liverpool University students. But the bar earned itself a new fan in the form of Radio 1's Breakfast DJ Greg James, who was in the city for a week in the

run-up to the Big Weekend festival. Speaking on his show on the morning of Friday, May 23, just before the first day of the festival kicked off, Greg admitted he was lured in by the cheap

pints and 'baby Guinness' shots deals. Speaking live on air, he said he was "fully in love with" the city of Liverpool, adding: "We had a night last night at Durty

Nellies. It's just one of the greatest places I've ever been to. "It was £3 pints, five baby Guinness for £5 and an amazing guy called Danny O'Donnell, who was doing

acoustic guitar stuff, covers, and it turned into a huge thing with all of us, because we all just piled in there. "A Radio 1 crowd is a really good crowd for a guy who was kind of

playing to about four people before we turned up, and he was kind of overwhelmed by the end because he was doing huge sing-a-longs to Queen and to Robbie and to God knows what else.

"There was one point where I looked at the producer Tom and he looked at me and we were both like 'we should book this guy for Big Weekend'. Article continues below

"That's the level of delirium we have reached and the level of excitement we've got for Big Weekend. Our lives are here now." Danny O'Donnell is a 23 year old singer

and guitarist from Donegal, now living in Liverpool, who performs at the Slater Street bar. Sharing a clip from the Breakfast show, Durty Nellies said: "Huge thanks to Greg James for

the shoutout and for all the fantastic team at BBC Radio 1 for coming down and enjoying our fantastic little bar - you are forever welcome." Greg also gushed about his love for Dirty

Nellies in his interview with the Liverpool ECHO at Sunday's festival. He said: "I am not just saying this because this is the ECHO - I am so in love with this city. I've had

such a good time, I feel like I live here now. "We've been up here for over a week and we've just been so welcomed. It's so fun, there are great places to go out and I

love the sense of humour - everyone is so funny and up for it. "We were hiding tickets all over the place, at Anfield, on the Liverpool Wheel, at Knowsley Safari, down by the docks. The

best place for a night out that we went to... we had a funny night out on Thursday at Durty Nellies, which we really liked. You can just stumble into a place." The festival takes

places each year in a different location across the UK, with a superstar line-up curated by the radio station. This year's big names included Sam Fender, Mumford & Sons, Tate McRae,

Sugababes, Haim, JADE, AJ Tracey, Myles Smith, Wet Leg, Blossoms, Lola Young and many more. Article continues below ‌For years, Greg has toured the country with the festival, presenting the

programme live across BBC platforms and interviewing acts between sets.