The end of an era

[loz]

the Metro is shutting too on saturday, which is as tragic in a smaller way- a lot of eventually huge bands played their first london shows there. they even let a few zoners including myself put on gigs, although they probably regretted it.

in other weird venue news, HMV appears to have bought up half the venues in London (Hammersmith Apollo, Borderline, Kentish Town Forum and a couple of others). Apollo and Forum will now be HMV-branded.

 

[Ron Manager]

The Hammersmith Apollo has been something like the Carling Apollo for a while now anyway hasn't it? At least HMV is music related. Still a bit sad though, but if it means they survive then a neccesary evil I suppose.

 

[Lester Bangs]

Yep spend many nights there, memorable gigs for me off the top of my head were:-

Levellers '91
Blur '94
My life story '95
Charlatans '96
Orb '02
Cake '06

What always amazed me just how many tickets they sold, it was always full to the brim in an almost fire hazard incredibly dangerous sort of way. The fact that they sold cans of lager (Breaker, Red Stripe etc) by the end of the night everyone was standing on 2 feet of empty crushed beer cans.

Lets not forgot the indie-disco they had on Saturday nights in the Astoria 2 during the brit pop era. It was definitely a pull a Scandinavian or European tourist night.

Immense stuff and really sad to see it go :'(

 

[NZamba Legend]

I saw Jesus Jones there in 1989. Can't believe I've just admitted that.

 

[markw]

is the astoria 2 still gonna be open? i thought that was a brilliant venue almost as good a sthe normal astoria

 

[BrettieAngell]

is the astoria 2 still gonna be open? i thought that was a brilliant venue almost as good a sthe normal astoria

Its the same building mate.

 

[markw]

thats true :P

oh and the electric ballroom is in camden its brilliant i saw pendulum there and went mad