Tag: London Kentish Town and Country Club

Nottingham Venues 1 to 3

The reason for my initial visit back in 1992 was that we on the Sugar trail. After seeing them in Leicester on the Friday, we had a Nottingham date with them on the Saturday night.  

Fiona was not in attendance at the gig as she had a family wedding. We chilled during the day and then headed to Steve and Steph’s to eat pizza and watch Ghostbusters. Steph was telling us about having a meeting and photo with Bob Mould in a record shop that afternoon.

We jumped on a bus and had a couple of beers in Jacey’s Bar and then headed into Nottingham Trent Polytechnic at 9.15pm just before the band hit the stage. It was a traditional Uni type venue and was the only time I visited there and looking now at the history it doesn’t display any gigs beyond mid-90’s, so I must have been at one at the latter ones. Nirvana and Teenage Fanclub played there in it’s heyday.

Steve was the coat monitor as the remaining three in the party headed to the front. The sound was instantly better than the previous night resulting in a huge moshpit which obviously I dived into, resulting in a stunning bruise on my ribs the next day!

They were thankfully one of these bands that juggled the setlist which always adds variety to the proceedings if you see them more than once on the same tour. Standouts were ‘A Good Idea’ and ‘Fortune Teller’. Five minutes after the set conclusion, Bob wandered past where we were standing.

My brother headed down to London the following night to catch them at the Town and Country Club and I caught them two weeks later at the Boardwalk in Manchester, so we completed pretty good coverage between us on that first tour.

My next musical jaunt was to Nottingham Rock City on 18/10/97 to see Spiritualised supported by Steephill Jack. It turned out to be my only visit to the Main Hall.

Nottingham Rock City. Image Credit Rock City

Rock City is a somewhat fated venue as two other scheduled gigs there didn’t happen for different reasons. One to see Kyuss (forerunners to Queens of the Stone Age) was missed due to illness and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club annoyingly cancelled their show on the day of the gig.

It has always been touted as a much-vaunted venue, but it seemed a fairly unremarkable place and the gig tended to wash over me as well as the chilled Spiritualised vibe didn’t have its tentacles out that night.

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Spiritualised live on stage. Image Credit giggingni.com

However, the fates turned in our favour as we headed out post-gig and discovered a band mid-set in the Nottingham Rock City Basement Hall. It took a second to recognise who was playing but soon realised it was those incendiary lovable South London scamps Snuff kicking up a storm!

They were jammed into a small hall with a monster sweaty moshpit. The 30 minutes we managed to catch was superb. The highlight was at that particular point in time they were bringing up local punters to the stage to guest vocal, perhaps selected via their fan club. The local talent absolutely nailed a terrific version of Snuff’s cover of ‘I Think Were Alone Now’.

This resulted in turning what had been a slightly tame gig into a very fun bonus encore!

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!