REMEMBER REMEMBER THE 5TH OF NOVEMBER

Kentish Town’s The Forum featured Canadian post rockers Godspeed You Black Emperor last night.

Every once in a while you come across a band that you can’t stop listening to; that seems to become a soundtrack to your life. Sometimes you need the abstract, out of focus, blurry and seemingly transient with no connection to anything much. Every once in a while it’s the right combination of events, location and music that will re-surface in the future. The past anchoring the uncertain future. The best gigs are always in small-loaded-with-atmosphere venues, like The Jesus And Mary Chain at The Old Ambulance Station.

or The Dave Howard Singers at The Tunnel Club:

I suppose exception must be made when Thin Lizzy supported Queen at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1977. That was good. Oh yeah and The Stones at Rich Stadium in Buffalo in 1978. That one was good too! I got thinking about how important the atmosphere in the venue is to a great gig. The sterile surroundings of The O2 no match for the faded Victorian charm of The Forum or any one of dozens old music halls and theatres spread out across London still in use today.

Music Halls flourished in the 1850’s and were just that: Halls that music was played in. Of course in those days with no amplification it was all traditional cockney street tunes, dancing (ballet even!) and whatever you could bash out on that out of tune piano in the corner. Entertainment was pretty simple, the ‘acts’ could be of a broad variety, from amateur to professional and from magicians to mimics who impersonated some of the bigger music hall artists of the day. Perhaps you were lucky and caught the site of a woman in a glass tank who could eat and drink under water, or you could listen to songs by novelty musicians. Comic routines and short plays and sketches were performed in the smaller music halls of London, and the audiences were “perfectly pleased with dull songs, hoary jokes, stale sentiment and clap-trap patriotism”.

Sounds like a night out at The O2 in 2012!

So what started out as a bit of a knees up in a back room in a pub soon evolved into proper venues which were built for hundreds of paying punters.

The best surviving example of capturing the atmosphere of one of these Music Halls is Wilton’s Music Hall down in Shadwell, East London. The hall itself extends through a row of old houses along Grace’s Alley in E1. Fading paintwork, decaying wood and peeling plaster is all fairly aesthetic and can be easily fixed up but what’s more worrying as you wander around the place is the decrepit and crumbling ceilings, walls and roof. You get the feeling that it will all collapse at any minute. George Leybourne was famous for performing his tune ‘Champagne Charlie’ there during 1866.

How does all this relate to Guy Fawkes and “remember remember the fifth of November”? It could have been a music hall tune – there were a few nice little rhymes people used to sing. “Penny for the guy”...that’s a bit of an act isn’t it? It could have all started in a music hall as a bit of a laugh, a joke and a grim attempt at black humour. Stuffing your older brothers worn out clothes with newspaper, sticking the ‘guy’ together and propping him up on the street corner begging for pennies and then chucking him on the bonfire. In an act of barbaric vengeance the original guy got caught and was drawn and quartered for trying to blow up the Houses Of Parliament in 1605. Up until very recently our guy just got chucked onto the bonfire.  It was a part of the English condition and it’s a tradition that is fading away from Britain’s’ neighbourhoods. Instead we get a bunch of ghoulish children huddled at the front door not knowing this new tricking or treating craze well enough to say “Trick or treat” in order to get a sweet treat.

I just think there's a better story to be told about The Glenlyn Ballroom. This is where the Stones and The Who played in the early 1960's:

...or The Bambi Slam when they played at The Camberwell Odeon:

or when U2 played at The Half Moon in Herne Hill in 1979. They were discovered here fact fans!

It's kind of glorious isn't it? I mean the building LOOKS like it really means something.
Well anyway...the venue can stay the same...or it gets turned into a block of flats...we HOPE that the memories remain.