A 'legendary' Liverpool music venue saw some of the country's biggest bands cut their teeth including Oasis where fans paid just £3 for a ticket.
The Lomax club opened on Cumberland Street in Liverpool city centre in 1993. During its time, some of the UK's biggest bands played gigs there, including Oasis and Radiohead, before finding worldwide fame.
One memorable gig happened on April 13, 1994, when a young up-and-coming band from Manchester called Oasis played a gig just months before they went stratospheric. Mike Hindley, who co-owned the venue at the time, spoke to the Liverpool Echo back in 2008 about that night.
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Mike recalled Oasis receiving just £100 between them for the Lomax gig. The gig took place 10 days before their debut single, Supersonic, hit the top 40 and just three months before their first big hit, Shakermaker, reached number 11 in the UK charts.
Mike remembered the same night, Oasis' frontman also got handy with a marker pen at the venue. Mike said: "I remember Liam Gallagher wrote something on the toilet wall - something which wasn't very complimentary about Nazis or Man United!"
The venue opened at the perfect time, just as the Britpop era of music took off and shaped the cultural landscape in the UK in the 1990s. Mike told the ECHO: "We wanted the Lomax to have the same kind of feeling as Eric's and we were just dead lucky. We opened and the whole Britpop thing exploded."
As well as Oasis and Radiohead, some of the bands to grace the stage there included Cast, Space, Supergrass, The Verve, Stereophonics, Shed Seven, Sleeper and Echobelly. However, Mike's favourite gig at the Lomax featured Joe Strummer, former frontman of punk legends The Clash.
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Mike said: "We all knew we were watching a legend that night. I don't normally like meeting my heroes in case they let you down, but Joe lived up to everything. He was such a nice man.
"I also loved Stereophonics. I loved their drummer, Stuart - he was a f*****g lunatic! And again, you knew you were watching something special."
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Asked if Mike had any bad memories of hosting gigs at the Lomax, he recalled: "Hugh Cornwell, who used to be in The Stranglers. He said his dressing room wasn't 65 degrees - so I told him to put a coat on. He also asked for champagne - I said it was £35 at the off-licence. He just didn't seem to realise where he was playing."
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The Lomax moved from its original Cumberland Street building in 2000 to share the bigger venue it spawned, the L2 in Hotham Street. Following the closure of the L2 in 2002, which went on to become the O2 Academy, a new version of the Lomax reopened back on Cumberland Street with new owners.
However, following a series of drugs raids by Merseyside Police in 2014, the Lomax was shut along with Garlands and Republik on Bold Street. While Garlands was eventually allowed to reopen, even an organised protest consisting of hundreds of the venue's fans couldn't save the Lomax from permanent closure.
Although now no longer a part of the city's music scene, the Lomax has cemented its status as one of Liverpool's iconic gig venues that was in the right place at the right time.
