What’s your favourite music venue?

Victoria Hall - Geneva

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Hammy Odeon, to give it it’s proper name.

Slough Community Centre in the 1970s

The Nag’s Head, High Wycombe. Gigs upstairs and jam nights downstairs. The upstairs gigs were originally run, if I remember rightly, by Fat Ron of the band Brewer’s Droop.

steve

I used to like the Hammersmith Palais - mainly because when I saw Taj Mahal there, after a few songs there was a complete power failure and he carried on with an acoustic set for the rest of the evening, in near darkness. Not sure at this remove, but
he may also have had a National Steel with him.
Made for a magical, unforgettable night…

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I attended 2 gigs at The Hardrock: Uriah Heep (poor sound) and Beck, Bogert & Appice (great sound). I think they were in either '73 or '74. The odd think about it was that the theatre was divided in 2 down the middle with seating one side and standing the other! Living out of Manchester it was always difficult to get home after the gigs so we only went the twice.

If we are talking poor venues, I give you Liverpool Stadium (long gone). Despite it’s name it was an indoor venue mainly used for boxing tournaments. Went to a few gigs there in the 70’s. For some reason, on the night I was there, Hawkwind decided to record the Space Ritual album hence the awful sound. The only good thing was that I met my future wife there at a Lindisfarne concert. That would have been in '72. One particularly memorable night was Roxy Music on their first tour supporting Free and Rory Gallagher. I’d never heard anything like it and I bought their debut album the next day. Eno couldn’t use his synth as it was “live” so just stood there in peacock feathers playing tambourine for the whole performance.

Poor venues, I give you Stafford Bingley Hall. A cattle auction shed, I think
Crammed in like sardines, with s**t acoustics
Leeds Queens Hall, an old tram shed with low roof
Unfortunately sometimes you had to go to these venues because that’s where the bands played back in the early '80s

Absolutely right - I’ve been to both of those venues in the 80s and once was enough!

I agree the 02 is terrible i saw the eagles there. no atmosphere.

Pigs Nose Inn ,East Prawle , Devon. Unbelievable live music pub in Devon. Seen some greats in there usually undercover!

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The Bridgwater hall Manchester is very good and not too big. Very good acoustics.
Also academy 3 manchester

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The Watford town hall. Diabolical. One of the worst venues.

Roundhouse, Chalk Farm

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Craziest night was in St George Robey boozer in Finsbury

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Nooooo. That place has shocking acoustics. There are 3 locations you can sit where you can almost guarantee decent sound but even that changes depending on the type of gig. There was an article about 5 years ago which used it as an exemplar of how you can appear to do everything right and yet still get it horrendously wrong.

Now, Academy 3 (still the Hop and Grape to me) also has hugely variable acoustics but the intimacy makes up for it. The Bridgewater delivers maybe 10% of the time. A3 is closer to 60/70% imo.

Ah… the Robey! What a place!

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The Hammersmith palais. Brings back memories in the early 70s i saw bill haley
And little richard on seperate gigs. These artists are missed.

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The rainbow was good i have seen count Basie. And also chuck berry
But the area is not so nice.

The albert hall you need to sit near. I saw oscar peterson once the seat was a long way back
The sound was dreadful. I have seen johnny cash. The everlys. Diana krall. Fats domino
All near the front. Wonderful

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Ah, the RAH - many enjoyable performances there, but yes, some positions much better than others: Sitting in the 3rd row (floor seats) a little right of centre, I wished I was in the seat in front of me - because that occupant caught Ritchie Blackmore’s Strat with broken neck at a Deep Purple gig!

Black Sabbath were said to have been banned after the gig I was at, but I don’t recall why - the crowd had been rather lively, thoroughly enjoying it.

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The wigmore hall is excellent. Always full.