January 2010
1 post
WatchI don’t know if this was from the actual night I was there, but I went to see Mogwai at the Astoria in 1999. It was the first night of the Brats tour. I had their records, and I was there with Tash and fellow emo kids, Mitch and Tom. I don’t think I was prepared for how good they would be live. It was awesome, transcendent. That night their quiet-loud-quiet-loud formula felt bigger. It...
December 2009
2 posts
1 tag
Teenage Fanclub 1994
(image credit: Libraryman at Flickr)
She was the most beautiful girl I’d seen, oh, that day. At least. That week, certainly.
But then when you’re 14, a certain someone who’s not yet a certain someone, but might become a certain someone, if you were very lucky, the stars were aligned and every ship that ever sailed a sea suddenly docked, was always likely to be the most beautiful girl you’d...
manics 1994
The Astoria was enormously important to me growing up as a suburban Londoner. Lots of my first gig experiences took place there. That was where you went to see all the good bands, the proper ones who weren’t performing at The Venue in New Cross.
I saw the Manic Street Preachers do their penultimate gig with Richey Edwards there in 1994. It was brilliant; angry, fragmented and full of...
November 2009
3 posts
These are your nights
I’m sifting my gig memories, in order to share them, but in the mean time, to add to what James said: you can’t have missed the fact that music is becoming more and more corporate - its the HMV Forum now, not the Forum (not even the Town and County Club, for those even longer in the tooth), the various O2 Academies and so on (disclaimer: I sometimes write copy for gigs at those various...
join #tcrcrossrailpopupop
So they’ve demolished the Astoria, a classic live music venue on Charing Cross Road in London, to make way for one of the new Crossrail stations.
Fair enough. People tried to save the Astoria, but it didn’t work. Things change. That’s how it is. And Crossrail and Westminster Council have promised a new live venue will be at the heart of the new development.
But at the same...