Music Venues
London music venues we've loved
One of the London-RIP team wonders if others have had the experience of being music fans in the 70s and 80s, yet somehow missing every crucial gig. It wasn't for lack of being at the right venue either...
Not being there
In the mid 70s there was a Saturday Night Fever-style discoteque on the Finchley Road called Les Elites, the sort of place where you'd spend hours frugging away to Donna Summer records of a weekend. I recently read, to my astonishment, that the Sex Pistols played there. Blimey. Can this be true? I certainly missed that.
RIP The Music Machine
I also missed anyone decent who played at a favourite music venue of the time, The Music Machine in Camden Town. This was once a theatre, then a cinema, before it became a club in 1977. You could tell it had been a theatre. It had a certain plush seediness about it, all dimly-lit balconies, bars and twisty staircases.
It attracted more of a mixed crowd than West End venues - punks, skinheads, hippies and suburbanites like London-RIP. Lots of big-ish names played there, but the only band I can remember seeing was Jayne/Wayne County and the Electric Chairs. They were thunderingly awful. The MM became the Camden Palace in 1982. It was basically the same thing with cocktails and lasers, and not so much live music. Madonna appeared there, but not when I was there, naturally. The venue ceased being the Camden Palace in 2004, but is still a music venue.
RIP The Rainbow
North London's biggest music venue for a couple of decades was The Rainbow in Finsbury Park, which closed suddenly, we think circa 1981, and is now a church of all things. It fell into disrepair when it was left empty for years, but is now said to be internally restored to its former glories.
Everyone from the Beatles on played there, and the Clash's Rainbow appearance in 1977, where they really did experience a riot of their own, has been voted London's best live gig of all time. Of course, I wasn't there. I did see them at the Rainbow in 1978 though, and jolly good they were too. Sham 69 were supporting. This isn't such a cool gig to have been at, but what can you do?
RIP the Marquee, Wardour Street
The Marquee was one of London-RIP's fave West End music venues. This club has moved around a bit and has recently been relaunched in Leicester Square. We're referring to the Wardour Street Marquee, which was hot, sweaty and what you might call intimate. All the great and the good played there. However, a memory that sticks in my mind is of seeing Jordan - not Jordan boobs, but Kings Road Jordan - doing her thing. It was horrible. I did see a fantastic gig by Wreckless Eric there though. It isn't a legend. But it should be.
