Situated at the bottom of Adelphi St facing the main roundabout into town stands the Adelphi public house. Due to its very close proximity to the University, it has always been one of the main student haunts. To the right lies the ever-expanding Fylde St campus where I undertook a 2-year night school BTEC Statistics course in the mid 90’s. The pub for many years was next door to a couple of Civil Service offices, one of them Caspar House, I forget the other building name, and both have long since been flattened.
Crossing the roundabout was a hazardous occupation until they discovered student’s inability to follow the Green Cross Code and vastly improved the crossing points. Back in the day, when pubs were more closely affiliated to breweries the Adelphi was linked to Bass Brewery. Being a real ale snob at that juncture, I avoided the place as it served Stones which in my view was the absolute nadir of beers. It did gradually improve on that front and now has a couple of real ales on tap, I also had a spate of supping a few sherbets of Caffrey’s in there when that was all the rage.
It has always been a traditional open plan student pub with pool tables and a plethora of TV’s showing wall to wall sport and looks inviting from the outside. Always a decent place to watch a match, I recall England losing on penalties (quelle surprise!) to Portugal in the Quarter Finals of the 2004 Euros. They also used to have the best fruit machine in the world, a Doctor Who version which seem to regularly pay out with gay abandon. It remains a good meeting for a post-match pint when I am back over in Preston.
To the right of the bar was a doorway taking you to the upstairs bar which was originally a lounge room before incorporating a small stage and starting to showcase bands in the early 90’s. It was a small cosy venue with a mini bar at the back and the capacity could not have exceeded 250.
I regretfully missed a very early performance from Mogwai there. They had just started to appear on my radar, and I used to scour the NME on its Wednesday publication and in one week around 1997 I saw a Mogwai live review at the Adelphi from the week before, a hefty donation to the swear box followed that discovery! To improve my mood, I discovered later that John Dewhurst and Jez Catlow had been in attendance, still waiting for that call John!
Their personal reviews said that in such a small setting and with a low roof that the sound system could not cope with the sonic noise and as a result it was not the best gig and I can personally testify that a more spacious environment only serves to enhance their performance.
Now I realise why we never went in, back in the early days!
Was ‘Toby light’ also on the JC banned list? 🍺
I saw Mogwai, The Delgados, Cataonia, Babybird, Tom Robinson, John Otway, Jacqui O’Shea’s Pentangle, The Vibrators, Dale Watson, Stacy Earle, Angelica, Aziz Ibrahim with Ex Smiths Andy Rourke on bass and Mike Joyce on drums, Steve Harley, Hugh Cornwall, Spunge, Perfume, Formula 1, Nice Peter, Christine Collister and many, many more.
Ticket prices were reasonably priced, the acoustics were of a high standard and everyone there was really friendly. When they stopped putting on bands and concentrated more on djs my heart sank but I look back on my time there with fondness. I also loved the pop quiz they used to have on Mondays but as the Echo And The Bunnyman song said “Nothing Ever Lasts Forever”
My mate was the big skinhead who shocked the audience by calling Nice Peter a “racist shithouse!”, to which Peter dedicated a song to him , Peter had been singing knickers, my mate thought it was the N word!
I was also at many of the gigs Nik went to.I also played there many times as Pike and we supported The Vibrators and Peter and the test tube babies amongst others .One of the best was Tom Robinson the first time and the excellent Jason and the scorchers
I love Pike, Jez. They’re a great punk band. Jason and the scorchers was another one I went to which was brilliant. Tom Robinson’s a top bloke. He always has time for his fans and is so genuine. I really miss live music. Let’s hope we get back to some kind of normality soon.
Cheers Nick hope to see you at a gig soon.
Thanks Jez. I’ll look forward to it mate.