London Eleventh and Twelfth Trips

I have travelled a few times down to London with work and at one stage was visiting a company who were based nearby to Moorgate station and adjacent to London Finsbury Square. In 1784 the Square witnessed the first successful attempt of a hot air balloon flight and there is also a memorial installed there to commemorate the 1975 Moorgate tube crash where 43 people perished.  

Finsbury Square. Image Credit londonplanning.org.uk

In the summer of 2017 after leaving a meeting I was headed back to the tube for the journey home and heard music playing. In the early 20th century, the square was home to the London Royal Yeomanry and on that day the Band of Royal Yeomanry (Inns of Court & City Yeomanry) were playing a gig.

Their regimental history dates to 1548 and the band formed in 1961. They perform at many events, including D-Day memorials in Normandy and 6 Nations matches at Twickenham. They still maintain their original ceremonial uniform of French blue jacket and trousers, chain mailed shoulders, George boots and spurs and Chapka helmets.

Band of Royal Yeomanry Band. Image Credit flickr.com

I have always been a huge fan of Hold Steady and have now seen them nine times in total and they sit in bronze medal position of my bands most seen list. That figure would undoubtedly be higher if not for the fact that they have not played a Manchester date since 19/10/14. The reason for this dearth is that they have chosen since then to just play an annual three-day residency in London with no other regional dates.

As a result, we decided to make a pilgrimage down to the smoke in 2019 as I was missing my Hold Steady fix! Their base for their seasonal jaunt is in the thriving Camden suburb of the city. I met Uncle George and John Dewhurst off the train, and we dropped our bags at the handy location of Euston Premier Inn.  We then headed off on the Northern tram line to find our first hostelry, the Dingwalls pub on Camden Lock overlooking the canal.

My first visit to that establishment was in 1987 when I saw Brilliant Corners supported by a yet undiscovered Happy Mondays. The pub has certainly gone through a regentrification phase since then, but they still have live music there on a regular basis.  We also had a foray to the Old Eagle public house and to refuel we hit a local pie shop but there were unfortunately no butter pies on sale!

The Hold Steady show took place at London Camden Electric Ballroom. The Ballroom is a long-established venue and has been in place for 80 years. It began its days as an Irish club where the crooner Jim Reeves used to play and adopted its current name in 1978. There used to be a weekend indoor market staged there and was in place until 2015. It survived potential demolition in 2004 when there was a proposal to redevelop Camden Town underground station.

Camden Electric Ballroom. Image Credit Electric Ballroom

There are two dance floors and four bars contained within and it has a capacity of 1500 and there was good viewing of the stage from any vantage point.  They launched straight in with the vibrant ‘Stuck Between Stations’ and didn’t let up for the next 24 tracks, it was another thoroughly enjoyable performance.

It was also appropriate as a milestone event as it was Uncle George’s and I 500th gig together, a mere 32 years since our first, a staggeringly good Pogues show at Manchester International 2. Our 100th was also a belter with Black Rebel Motorcycle playing the Mill, a small club in Preston.  

After the set had finished, George and I progressed onto London Camden Monarch for number 501. The original Monarch prior to 2000 was in another area of Camden which then became the music venue Barfly. The new Monarch opened in 2008 in a new site on Chalk Farm Road and the DJ on the opening night was none other than Amy Winehouse!

The pub subsequently closed in 2020 but reopened the following year under the new moniker Monarchy retaining the live music in a downstairs events space called the Vault.  On the night we visited a local indie band called Stay Club took to the stage.    

London Second Trip

In October 1987 my brother and I headed off on a sally to London and attended a flurry of gigs in a similar vein to Mr Heaton Hibs comment on London First trip. We travelled down by train on Saturday 24th October and swiftly dropped the bags at our lodgings, the Calvados Hotel in Victoria. We then scarpered off to take part in an Anti-Apartheid rally with 75,000 other participants. On arrival at the final destination of the march at Hyde Park, where Rolling Stones once played a famous free concert in 1969. There were various speakers but also a short enjoyable set from the Bhundu Boys.

That evening we headed up to Harlesden, an Irish enclave in North West London. There was some fine Guinness on tap in the pubs, one had about 20 pints already half pulled in preparation for the incoming orders. Our terminus was the Mean Fiddler, a honky tonk venue run by Vince Power, who went on run the Leeds/Reading festivals. It was opened in 1982 taking over from a dubious drinking club run by boxer Terry Downes, the venue subsequently closed in 2002.

It is was a fabulous venue with very laid-back country music booming out. We saw Townes Van Zandt there who was significantly inebriated but was enjoyable nonetheless and played to 11.25pm. He was support to the Dave Kelly Band, but we had to leave before then to catch the last tube which managed to get us to within a mile walk of the digs.

We had a gig free day on the Sunday. On the Monday afternoon we had a double bill of movies watching The Untouchables and then Rivers Edge featuring Dennis Hopper and a very young Keanu Reeves. We headed into Camden later that day to visit Camden Dingwalls. The venue first opened in June 1973 and was home to Blondie’s first ever UK gig and remains a venue to this day, in fact I was in the bar there for a cheeky beer about a year ago and it is significantly more gentrified nowadays.

It was a £1.50 entrance fee and was a bit of a battered venue in those days. I recall purchasing a scooby snack of some fine cheese salad butties. The first band were Brilliant Corners who were pure pop music and they were superb. I recall them playing ‘Brian Rix’ and the excellent ‘Delilah Sands’, I still own the 12-inch version. They were supporting the Happy Mondays who weren’t great and I was never really a fan, but 12 months later they were huge…

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Brilliant Corners. Image credit danicanto.com

The original plan for the Tuesday was to see Michelle Shocked but it was a Mexican Restaurant gig so we hunted down an alternative gig. After visiting the Forbidden Planet comic store, we travelled over to Angel Tube station. We visited a couple of hostelries on what was a windswept night and then headed over to City University on Northampton Square. The venue was on the second floor of the University, full of long corridors. The first band was Raw Herbs who were somewhat appropriately very studenty but enjoyable. Corn Dollies were on second, Janice Long reportedly a fan, who had to cut their set to 30 minutes to meet the 11pm curfew. Both were East London bands.

The City University venue is nearby the Lexington, a venue twice in recent times I have tried to attend, both without success, but I am nothing but perseverant so I will get there eventually.

By our last day in London on the Wednesday we were proper jaded. We bought tickets for our farewell gig from a ticket outlet in Camden at lunchtime and then went to view Blue Velvet, a surreal David Lynch movie. A stock take at the digs revealed we had £15.50 in the coffers thus funds were running perilously low. Off to Kentish Tube we weaved heading into the Town and Country Club at 10pm to see the Bhundu Boys again. The venue had that name between 1985 and 1993 and is now badged the O2 Forum.

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Bhundu Boys. Image Credit blogspot.com

I do recall a bloke at the bar offering to buy us a round, thinking back now he probably thought I was a waif and stray who he may be able to take advantage of. More fool him as I gratefully accepted the beers and strode back off to the sprung dancefloor.

It was an excellent venue with winding steps leading up to packed balconies with a responsive audience dancing and swaying away to the Zimbabwean vibes. I managed to get within four rows of the front and they were excellent with the lead singer tipping his hat after every tune. We had earlier won on the bandit so we could rather decadently buy a Chinese each, some fags for my brother and have £3 left in our pocket!