Year: 2020

London First Trip – Venues 1 and 2

I have a love/hate relationship with our capital city. It is a cultural hub and there are many places of interest and I do revel in sometimes playing the dumb northerner from north of Watford! The converse side is that the place can be overpoweringly busy and more than a tad mucky.

For a couple of years at the start of 80’s we used to undertake a house swap with a family in Upminster, which is the last Eastern stop on the District line (the green one) and this involved many trips into the metropolis and coincided with West Ham winning the cup in 1980. I recall one day going to the viewing platform in the Houses of Parliament for Question Time (allowed in those days), followed by a visit to one of the first McDonalds and then onto Wembley to watch England beat the reigning World Champions Argentina 3-1, twas an eventful day!

My first unaccompanied trip down was with my brother in April 1985 where at the age of 17 I attended the fifth and sixth gigs of my lifetime. We took advantage of the British Rail Apex tickets available at that point in time costing us a princely £25 each. As it was half-term we managed to purloin some digs in a halls of residence near Warren Street tube station, which were basic but cheap and centrally located.

On arrival, we scoured the NME and Time Out for available gigs and identified one at the Sir George Robey on Seven Sisters Road in Finsbury Park which was located opposite the Rainbow Theatre. Couple of useless facts I have since garnered is that the fictional pub The Harry Lauder in Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch is based on the Robey and it is also the pub visited towards the end of Trainspotting. The venue was renamed the Powerhaus and closed in 2004 and was subsequently demolished in 2015.

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The Sir George Robey in 1988. Image Credit Paul Walling

The band in question were called Bill Posters Will Be Banned who turned out be a comedic musical combo containing former members of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. I cannot recall a lot of detail though remember them being periodically amusing and have stronger memories of the drinking holes visited before.

The other gig the following night was at the Putney Half Moon where apparently the Rolling Stones, The Who and Kate Bush have graced the stage and the place remains a live venue to this day. The first band on was Surfing Dave. I was chatting to their bassist Les Atkins prior to the gig and extolling him for some inexplicable reason to reference when on stage that there were Preston lads in attendance and that the town contained the biggest bus station in Europe. To his eternal credit he affably did so. The lead singer was an absolute spit of Sergeant Bilko. Their best tracks were ‘I Got a Surfing T-Shirt’ and ‘Exchange and Mart’.

The headline act was The Hank Wangford Band which besides Hank also included Bobby Valentino and Cissy Footwear. They were a Country and Western group who we had picked up from airplay on the Andy Kershaw show. They were enjoyable and standout track was ‘Jogging with Jesus’. We had a chat with them afterwards and they remain on the live circuit to this day under the latest moniker Hank Wangford and the Lost Cowboys. The night took a turn for the worse however as we missed the last tube resulting in an exceptionally long trog back to the lodgings, finally arriving at 3.30am. We missed breakfast the following morning!    

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Hank Wangford Band. Image Credit hankwangford.co.uk

https://www.halfmoon.co.uk/

Blackburn King Georges Hall

Ten miles down the road from Preston via bus or rail lies the town of Blackburn. It is another old mill town and was home to the Matthew Brown and Thwaites breweries in 1980’s/1990’s and they dominated the ownership of the public houses in the area.

Situated central Blackburn is the famous old venue King Georges Hall. It is a Grade 2 listed building and was opened in 1921. David Bowie played there on his Ziggy Stardust tour in 1973 and it was a staple on the punk circuit. There are three halls, the Concert Hall (capacity 1800), Windsor Suite (750) and Blakeys Café Bar (500).

You may be surprised to hear I have attended all three venues, the most frequently attended being three appearances at the Windsor Suite. In 1986 I saw the Pogues and remember going to the Dun Horse pub before hands which left a lasting impression as a very odd Goth/Pagan pub, it would not have been out of place in the Wickerman film! The Pogues attracted the usual demented following and ‘Sally Maclannane’ was outstanding.

Later that year, I saw Jesus and Mary Chain supported by the Shop Assistants. The support band stole the show that night with their youthful C86 noisy shoegaze exuberance. They breezed on and their sonic single ‘Safety Net’ was delivered with aplomb and they also played a fine cover of ‘Ace of Spades’. Mary Chain were just not loud enough and were rather disappointing.

The legendary Shop Assistants. Image Credit Twitter

A few months after that on a monsoon like Thursday night I saw the Fall and they were decent with Brix Smith summarily taking the proverbial out of the audience and ‘Mr Pharmacist’ the best track.

I did once attend Blakeys Café Bar. This was to see a Battle of the Bands semi-final event around 1986 in which a couple of pals Warren Beesley and Mick Duffy’s band Purple Turtles were competing. There was an old double decker bus commissioned and we pottered over on that. We actually missed Purple Turtles on that occasion as we were ensconced in a boozer at that point due to my mate Rick’s fixation in finding the only Boddingtons pub in town. We caught the last three bands including the winners, a jazz band called Human Nature. The Turtles missed a top three slot so no qualification to the final.

I have attended the main Concert Hall twice with the sprung dance floor. My first attendance there in 1985 was to see Billy Bragg supported by Surfing Dave and Porky the Poet. It was sold out and they even opened the balconies that night. Billy was a solo performer at that point and was fabulous and I recall ‘Land of No Return’ and ‘Love Gets Dangerous’ being the highlights.

My final attendance was around 1995 to see Portishead. The smoking ban had not yet come into play but people weren’t smoking normal fags so even as a passive attendee it turned into a slightly blissed out experience. Lead singer Beth Gibbons was very nervous initially, but once confidence gained was soon belting it out and they turned out be very good live. I recall the four of us obtaining a dirt-cheap taxi home and a curry in the Dilshad in Preston completed a rather fine night. 

Portishead in concert. Image Credit you tube – Luigi Tesei