Once upon a time, not so very long ago, central London had a thriving, thrilling, fertile and ever-evolving live music scene located at the northern end of Charing Cross Road. A plectrum flick or three from Regent Sound Studio on Denmark Street, where Black Sabbath recorded their debut album in a single day in 1969, venues such as The Borderline, The Astoria, The LA2/Mean Fiddler and The 12 Bar, played host to everyone from Adele to Kyuss, Oasis to Nine Inch Nails, Therapy? to U2. For 25 years, across literally hundreds of gigs, I spent some of the happiest, messiest, most exhilarating nights of my life in this tiny sector of the capital, and the printable memories of those nights would fill a two-volume book.
Now, in the name of 'progress', each one of those venues has been destroyed. In their place, the area is dominated by the crass “billion-pound immersive media, music and culture district” that is Outernet London, a hideous, high-tech carbuncle featuring 360-degree 'walk-in' advertising billboards, brain-numbing 'brand content' for gawping tourists, gated private streets with professionally polite security teams, a boutique hotel with original Sex Pistols graffiti behind protective glass, and sterile, state-of-the-art 'performance spaces', including - tunnelled beneath what was once the 12 Bar - The Lower Third, a basement venue that is a property developer's idea of a dive bar, deigned to deliver a safe, sanitised 'live experience' as opposed to a sweat-soaked gig.
No-one wants to watch bands while standing in puddles of piss, vomit, blood, broken teeth and stale lager, but really, is this how anyone wants their favourite music served up? If so, kill me now. Thankfully, however, the music showcased here tonight is authentic, passionate and capable of changing lives in a manner that bullshit 'content hubs' like this never, ever will.
