As we had never made a pilgrimage to Anglesey, we decided to rectify that anomaly in 1997 with a weekend away in Beaumaris. A friend recommended a B&B which we swiftly booked into and travelled on the North Wales coast road en route to the island.
On the Friday night in a pub down the road, we began chatting to some locals who invited us to attend the main club in the town the following night. On the Saturday we salved our souls by visiting the numerous windswept beaches. We then had a fine curry at the Menai Bridge Tandoori before heading back to the same pub to meet our comperes for the evening.
The renowned club in question was the Beaumaris and District British Legion Club. We were readily signed in as visitors, post last orders in the pub, and the venue was a revelation as it seemed the whole town across all ages were in residence. We played some killer on the pool tables prior to the main musical act hit the stage.
The artist was a Roy Orbison tribute act resplendent in full garb obviously including the requisite dark sunglasses. It has to be noted he was rather good and regularly hit the challenging high notes. Now, I may have been imagining this, but he appeared to be looking regularly in our direction. Was it that we were recognising as newbies or was it thought that we were thought to be talent scouts! After a top night was had by all, we thanked our gracious hosts and bade our farewell.
In January 2002, we identified that Henry Rollins and the Rollins Band were undertaking a tour and playing the very unusual outpost of Whitehaven Civic Hall. The choice of venue piqued our interest so Uncle George, John Dewhurst and I headed over on a cold Thursday night.
It is a fair old drive into deepest Cumbria via the M6 and A66. The B&B we booked has to be worst I have ever lodged in replete with old fashioned extremely nosey landlady. It was dirty and unhygienic, one shared loo between all the rooms and the breakfast was inedible! Let’s just say we have never rushed back for a return visit.
We grabbed some tea at a local chippy, which served humongous fish, perhaps the close proximity to Sellafield contributed here, but boy it tasted good! There were odd coincidences that night where different cars appeared to follow us each time we turned into a road, even the quiet ones, to the point of us jesting that we were under surveillance.
The Civic Hall was the singular venue in town, containing our venue the Solway Hall (capacity 600) and Dunboyne Hall (capacity 400). The building appears to be still operational with odd tribute band on the gig listings and there are also additional theatre performances on the roster.
The venue was busy with a diverse clientele similar to the Beaumaris crowd with ages varying from 18 to 80, it created an interesting dynamic with stage diving being undertaken by the yoof!
Henry is famous locally for once citing a story when being interviewed by Terry Christian on the old Channel 4 music programme the Word. The tale relates to him being beaten up outside Preston Raiders nightclub when he was the lead singer in his original band Black Flag. As he was back in the North of England, he referenced the incident and his assertion that Preston folk had wafer thin craniums. We glanced at each other and wisely kept our heads down and eyes averted from the stage!
