Smallest and Grottiest Venues you've played!

[Number6]

[quote name='lowlandtrees' timestamp='1396520539' post='2414536']
Played a famous place in Grangemouth. Won't name it but it is/was near the docks. It was full of hookers. The image of the night was a couple in front of the stage. She was sitting in semi prone position and he was literally pouring beer into her face. Unfortunately it was also dribbling out the bottom end into an expanding puddle on the floor. Was a great gig.
[/quote]


This sounds like a great venue lol.....

[Lw.]

Played in the Buttermarket cellars in Shrewsbury a few times - it's a decent size for DJs but doesn't work at all for bands as the columns holding the roof up arch & are everywhere so you're stuck in a damp corner stooping the whole time.

Other than that; various dingy pubs in the suburbs of Birmingham/Wolverhampton & all those towns that merge into one around there - can barely remember the towns, let alone the pub names - can just remember the feeling of relief after we got back on the motorway in one piece with all our stuff.

[KingBollock]

That just reminded me of another small venue. It was in the cellar of a restaurant in Warwick. It was lovely but tiny, we had to get rather creative with the lighting rig. The place was made of stone with vaulted roofs and actually had a door that lead to a tunnel that went all the way to Warwick castle.

I remember a really annoying kid, with oblivious parents, who kept sticking his face in front of the smoke machine. There should be a thread about annoying audience members.

[yorick]

Moles in Bath in the mid nineties... what a sh!tehole.....

[ubit]

The places you are all describing sound like the places we play all the time! Our drag of venues is not the best, I can tell yas. We play small venues all the time with drunks pulling mic stands away from your face cos we all know how funny that one is, and the drinks on top of your amp, I never get tired of that one. Talk to me whilst, not only am I playing, but singing as well. The worst one was a wedding we played in a hotel. This place had never been used for a wedding, so the owner, a very snobby woman, wanted to tout it as a great place to have your dinner and entertainment. She kept on at us to watch her good wooden floor with our speaker and mic stands.The dance/ band bit was a separate room to the bar and consequently, every bugger sat in the bar and we played all night to about 8 kids sliding about on their knees across this wonderful wooden bloody floor......Incidentally. I just found out recently by speaking to the guy who fitted that floor, that its only laminate! The . Edited April 3, 2014 by ubit

[achknalligewelt]

Smallest place was a pub in deep country outside Rugby. No actual stage, but we (six of us) fitted ourselves in two four foot square alcoves on either side of a set of stairs. The problem was that these stairs led to the snug, and so we had someone literally walk through the band, while we were playing, every 30 seconds. I was in the left alcove, by the way, with the mixing desk, the drummer and the rhythm guitarist's amplifier.

Grottiest was South Wigston social club. Someone tried to sell me cocaine [i]during[/i] the bass solo in My Generation.

[CHW]

I played in a ceilidh band for 10 years or so, and while none of the places we played were too grotty, we had some massively inappropriate stages and venues.

We played at the large hotel in Goathland- in an L shaped alcove in the corner of the room, none of us could see anything of the audience
We played at numerous weddings etc where there was no stage, people ended up dancing through the band kicking over all sorts of kit on countless occasions.
On a village tennis court- all the audience were on the other side of the fence.
In a breeze block walled sports hall
In a tiny village hall, for a 40th party where more people were in the band than came to the do.

[DarkHeart]

smallest place we played last year was a pub for a birthday party, wasnt grotty though just tiny, try setting up in a bay window and you get gist

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[Russ]

Smallest - The Hope and Anchor in Islington. Great little place, but with the emphasis on "little". The stage was the size of a postage stamp, the PA was only for vocals (not surprising given the size of the place) and there was no room to actually move around. Good vibe though, and we had a great crowd the couple of times we played there.

The worst was undoubtedly The White Room in Hull. What a dump. We did a toilet venue tour of various places up north back in 2004, and that was on our itinerary. We got there in the van around lunchtime and the place was heaving, so that was promising. Lots of rock/metal/goth-looking types, which was our crowd. The gig was supposed to come with accommodation, so we got shown upstairs, and it was one big, empty room. No beds, nothing, and with a funny smell and suspicious-looking bits of stained tinfoil lying around on the floor. So we passed on the accommodation and found a nearby B&B instead. Come gig time, we went back to the venue and it was empty. Like, literally empty. Just us and the bar staff. So we didn't even bother. We gave them the album to play on the jukebox, and played pool for the rest of the night, in the hope that someone might show up. Our gear was set up and ready to go, but nobody showed.

[Kein engel]

On a early tour, the bettsy trotswood in London and the croft/ junction in Bristol... Absolute holes

[Protium]

Jilly's Rockworld. What a f**king dump.

[Back to Bassics]

[quote name='chriswareham' timestamp='1396220012' post='2411191']


The Dew Drop was quite intimidating when I lived in New Cross in 1992-4 - the regulars included a bunch of crusty squatter types with a taste for heroin, hence the drug raid. Got threatened in there on one occasion by some dreadlocked cretin for wearing eye liner. Loved the New Cross Venue just across the way from it though, saw some great gigs there featuring goth and crusty bands like Alien Sex Fiend and Creaming Jesus.

Brighton was a pub opposite the main railway station in 1998. I was in a band called Killing Miranda who had generated a bit of a buzz, which is probably why we had to play to two audiences in succession. I remember having blood running down the body on my prized Stingray bass by the end of the second set because I used to have an appalling playing technique with my wrist rubbing against the bridge until it blistered and bled.
[/quote]

The Dew Drop was intimidating, and they knew it (and played it up). I was introduced to the place and regulars by someone who'd lived there for years and was "a performing artist" and she knew all of them. Then she became very famous on the telly, without anyone being able to recognise her. She wasn't stuck-up and carried on drinking there, so the locals just loved her more. They also gave the tabloids a hard time when they tried to track her down. The place just over the way and up the hill was a great little venue. Played there a few times and loved if.

I remember the pub in Brighton, and the room (and telling them to f*** off when we saw it), despite it being about 25 yards from our studio/rehearsal room. Can't for the life of me remember what it was called ...

[mrtcat]

Got booked to play a 30th birthday a few years back. Turned up at the given address (6 piece band) and were told to set up in the living room. Was an ex 50s council house so we filled the front room completely. Everyone danced in the hall and kitchen. Great gig tho lol

[Grassie]

They're all pretty small down here on the Isle of Wight - The Old Comical in Sandown, The Railway in Ryde, the stage in The Anchor in Cowes has a staircase which starts at the back of it, we recently played a gig at Rookley Country Park where we were asked to play the main bar instead of the entertainment room. The stage was not deep enough to get the drumkit on so we stuck drummerboy on the end in the corner facing the "crowd" at a 45 degree angle. Can't think of any grotty venues - just the towns they're located in are grotty.

[paul_5]

Played some nice, big venues, but often for corporate arseholes with far more money than manners.

I remember depping for a disco/funk band - nice guys, good money, tight band etc…

all the ingredients for a run of great gigs, and they would have been but for the obnoxious property developers and 'new money and shouting about it' egotists.

[The Funk]

Jazz After Dark in Soho. Tiny stage, nonsensical layout, and run by terrible people. The last time I played there the guitarist and drummer both came off at the end and said "never again".

The only good thing about it is you get 3 hours or so on stage, so it's a good work out.