TALKING to some of the most ardent devotees of Newcastle City Hall, you might wonder how it is still standing.
The exhibition of memorabilia assembled to mark this weekend’s Heritage Open Days bears testimony to 80 years of exuberance and foot stamping.
“I’ve been coming to this venue for 50 years, since I was 13 or 14,” said Lindisfarne drummer Ray Laidlaw at the preview.
He remembered the first gig. “It was Jet Harris and Tony Meehan. They were the bad boys of The Shadows. But top of the bill were Paul & Paula, a saccharine American act. Ghastly. But I was blown away by the hall and I still am. As soon as the lights go out, the hairs on the back of my neck bristle.
“I’ve got a feeling of ownership of this place which is really out of order. But I’m not the only one. I know people who always book the same seats.”
Anyone connected with Lindisfarne is entitled to feel an attachment to the venue. The band, formed in the North East in 1970, performed 122 times at the City Hall – and always to a full house. Its seasons of pre-Christmas gigs throughout the 1980s became as much a part of North East life as the Great North Run and the Hoppings funfair.
Elaine Collins, a civil servant from High Heaton, Newcastle, almost has the City Hall as a second home.
As well as a treasured collection of 272 tickets to gigs at the venue on Northumberland Road, she still owns the Slade outfit which won her a City Hall competition on May 10, 1974. “See, I remember all the dates,” she says.
She recalls it as if it were yesterday the remark of Slade’s flamboyant Dave Hill that her costume was “better than mine”. Her prize was a cassette recorder and tapes. Afterwards they asked her to recommend a nightclub and took her with them in a limo to Scamps on Waterloo Street.
“It was a really big deal for me at 18,” she said.
From the photo that appeared in the papers next day, you really wouldn’t have guessed. Jubilant does scant justice to her expression.
Many such gigs are recalled in the programmes, tickets and photos loaned for the exhibition.
The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin (supported by Liverpool Scene and Blodwyn Pig on June 20, 1969), David Bowie, Elton John and many more have raised the roof, while jazz legend Chris Barber was a regular sell-out in the 1950s and ‘60s.
Not all the acts made a lot of noise. American humorist Tom Lehrer took the stage on June 25, 1960 and you can imagine the tears of laughter.
City Hall manager Peter Brennan hoped the exhibition, although put together for this weekend’s Heritage Open Days, would be the start of something - possibly an online archive of information and memories.
