The Hammersmith Palais, The Borderline, The Cellar Club. These are just three of the 140 iconic sites that featured in Paul Talling’s guide to London’s Lost Music Venues.
Published in 2020, the book is a trip down memory lane, offering images from post-war to pre-pandemic. Talling’s message is clear: ask any veteran punk or rude boy about their first gig in London, and chances are the venue has long been boarded up, demolished or sold.
Now the situation looks even more precarious. Since the pandemic, live venues have been repeatedly threatened by closure. According to the Music Venue Trust charity, the UK lost a grassroots music venue every fortnight in 2024.
The Lexington, on Pentonville Road, suffered under the reform of business rates in 2017 and received yet another blow in 2020 – COVID-19. The venue gained only 40 per cent of the payout it requested from the Arts Council alongside 1,300 other organisations. Last year, rumours circulated that the legendary Hope and Anchor pub, which has hosted the likes of The Cure as an underground music venue since the 1970s, would be shutting its theatre.
Nestled between two of London’s most renowned nightlife hotspots, Camden and Hackney, the borough of Islington remains a centre of arts and culture thanks to its ties with the iconic rock music decades of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Although many of these live venues are now a thing of the past, their legacy remains entrenched in Islington’s culture. In a time of crisis for live music, Islington Now takes a look back in memoriam at the borough’s lost venues.
The Sir George Robey – Finsbury Park
Located on Seven Sisters Road, a pub that was once named the Clarence Tavern in the 19th century entered the 70s with a new title, the Sir George Robey. Later, legend has it, a young Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols was a regular. Across the years, the Robey welcomed a number of star-studded names from Fairport Convention to the La’s. Taken on by The Mean Fiddler Group in 1996, the venue was rebranded as the Powerhaus, beckoning one of the Big Britpop Four to its stage: Blur. By 2004, the venue’s doors had shut. By 2015, the building was no more. Some might say it was the end of a century.
Screen on the Green – Upper Street
Best known as one of London’s oldest cinemas, the Screen On the Green – now owned by Everyman – held a rather momentous evening of entertainment in August 1976, when the Sex Pistols, supported by the Clash and the Buzzcocks, put on a “Midnight Special” for lucky listeners. The gig has been marked in history as the first Sex Pistols performance to be recorded. A year later, things turned Vicious, when Glen Matlock was replaced with Chelsea Hotel heartbreak Sid for yet another show at the venue.
Rainbow Theatre aka the Finsbury Park Astoria – Finsbury Park
It’s December 1963. A new craze by the name of Beatlemania has gripped the nation. Taking to the stage for their Christmas show, the four Liverpudlians blessed the Rainbow Theatre’s stage, marking its transformation from an old school cinema into a sweaty hotbox of sound. Soon after, the venue became a place of rebellion and violence, with Jimi Hendrix famously setting his Fender on fire, requiring treatment for a series of burnt fingers. In 1971, Frank Zappa was forced off the stage by a raucous fan, resulting in hospital treatment. Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Queen, Elton John and many more followed in their footsteps, until 1982 when the venue shut its doors for good. Where gig goers once prayed to rock gods at the front of the Rainbow Theatre’s stage, an Evangelical church now stands in its place.
MA Newspaper Journalism at City, University of London. Bylines in MyLondon, Clash Magazine, DIY Magazine, and more. Freelance Arts and Culture Journalist.
