Before rock became corporate, I miss those days...

When I first started going to gigs in earnest in 1976, going to Newcastle City Hall to see the likes of Uriah Heep and Hawkwind, it didn’t occur to me that these events were actually quite a new phenomena and had only been happening for a few years, at least on a regular basis. I suppose when you’re a teenager, a few years seem like an eternity. The City Hall had been hosting rock bands since Beatles and Stones gigs and before that going back to when it was built, organ recitals.
But what I didn’t grasp was that the City Hall I knew, which held gigs perhaps four times a week had only regularly hosted gigs for perhaps 5 years since ELP recorded Pictures At An Exhibition. Nowadays we’re used to gigs being held at venues for 50 years. Back then, we weren’t.
Gigs were held in the most unlikely places because there was no ‘circuit’. For example, near to where I grew up, Redcar Jazz Club hosted everyone from Hendrix to Cream but it was little more than a room above a hotel. Shows were held at Klooks Kleek, where Ten Years After’s Undead was recorded and that was, I think, above a pub.
Public buildings were used like the bulb hall in Spalding where they sorted flower bulbs and onions and held a show with Floyd, the Move and Hendrix.
If you look at the gig lists in the mid-60s, there are some out of the way places. The Beatles played the Memorial Hall in Bridge Of Allan in January 1963, in Scotland, a small village and in February, played the Swimming Baths in Doncaster. Imagine that. They played The Globe in Stockton where I grew up, on the day JFK was shot. Cinemas were the nearest thing to a gig circuit.
I used to go to the Coatham Bowl in Redcar, now demolished, which was a small club and ate fried chicken in a basket. It was a long way from the purpose-built enormo domes of today. More personal and up-close. I miss those days. My pal tells stories of seeing the Small Faces in the back room of a pub even when they were famous in the mid-60s.
I love the ads for such small gigs by famous bands. They seem so incongruous. It was a time before rock became corporate.

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