Leeds Music Venues we have loved and lost

Almost all of the music venues I attended in my youth have since closed down, but they live large in my memory, and no doubt those of many others, and deserve to be remembered. My prime gig going years in Leeds were during the Nineties, so most of the venues I have personally lost are those that were open during those years. No doubt there were others I missed out on both before and since, but these are the ones that meant most to me.

The Duchess of York

This Duchess was a small unremarkable pub right in the heart of Leeds City Centre, that somehow attracted some of the world’s greatest bands. Nirvana for example, just before they got huge, and Green Day likewise. I wasn’t lucky enough to see any really big acts before they went on to stardom, although I did see Corinne Bailey Rae in her pre-fame grunge band Helen (the bass player went to my school). Despite not having any ‘I was there’ boasts, I had some awesome times at the Duchess watching touring bands, local bands, and occasionally even friends’ bands. The venue itself wasn’t impressive in some ways. The sound was a mixed bag and you weren’t always lucky enough to find a spot where you could see the stage. However, the atmosphere was always great, and those who ran the venue clearly loved and understood music, which is the most important thing.

Lost: 1999
Loved: Feeder

Joseph’s Well

Another unassuming venue, just a back room in a pub on the edge of the city centre, but for a while back there they used to get some great bands on (mainly The Delgados in my memory). I also have vague memories of friends of mine abusing the hand stamp system to get in for free, and spending as much time finding ways to get served alcohol underage as watching the bands. I also remember being insulted by the lead singer of one band we went to watch for wearing a Kenickie t-shirt (they stood for everything he hated in music apparently, I’ll save the full rant for another day)

I’m not sure I ever went there again after I left Leeds to go to University, but it kept going for longer than I realised, changing its name to The Well and only finally shut up shop around a decade ago. Like much else in Leeds City Centre, Joseph’s Well now lends its name to a generic office space.

Lost: 2012
Best Gig: The Delgados

The Cockpit

Perhaps my favourite of the Leeds venues of my youth, mainly because of the location. You could get to the venue down a easily missed set of stairs on the approach to the train station, giving it a mysterious, secretive quality. It was located in the arch of a railway bridge, meaning you’d occasionally get the noise of trains passing overhead.

I most often went there for their Saturday night indie/rock/punk disco (and associated cheap drinks), but they had plenty of great gigs too, and was one of the only venues I used to visit when I’d come back to Leeds for weekends after I’d moved away. More than any of the others it gives me a deep sense of nostalgia if I happen to pass by its former site, remembering my younger self queueing up outside in the cold and rain.

The Cockpit lasted a long time, long enough in fact that went I permanently moved back to Leeds in early 2014 it was still there (although with a new job and first child on the way I never found time to visit), but later that same year it finally gave up the ghost, with the same owners now running The Key Club in The Merrion Centre.

Lost: 2014
Loved: Sleater-Kinney

Town & Country Club

This venue is technically not lost, it still exists under another name. Back when I started going to gigs it was known as the Town & Country Club, so that is what I will always think of it as. In reality it only went by that name for 8 years, shutting down in 2000, re-opening for a while as a nightclub, and then becoming part of the much unloved O2 venue chain. The security is overzealous, the beer expensive and poor quality, and they take a big cut of all artists merch sales. I try to avoid it nowadays, only going there if there’s a band I really, really want to see playing there. Back when I was younger though, it was important to me, being the Leeds venue that most bands I wanted to see (mainly mid-sized indie bands) played. I have fond memories of skiving off school one afternoon, buying cheap booze and going to hang out outside the back of the venue in the hope of meeting Skunk Anansie. we made such a racket that eventually lead singer Skin came out back to say hello just to shut us up. It’s also a beautiful building from the outside, a grade 2 listed Gothic building, even if as a gig venue it is probably my least favourite on this list

Lost: 2010
Loved: Skunk Anansie

The Constitutional

The only venue on this list to have both opened and closed since we moved back to Leeds. It is fair to say that we were very excited when the old Farsley Constitutional Club was re-opened as an arts venue just ten minutes walk from our house back in 2018. It put on not only music but comedy, theatre, cabaret, even bingo. The programme was packed with the sort of small scale experimental work that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find out in the suburbs, but sadly the economics never quite worked (the pandemic probably didn’t help much) and it closed its doors at the end of 2022. It left me sad that we didn’t get to make the most of it, due to having small children and not going out all that much. In better news, the same people who ran the venue opened a sister venue (The Old Woollen) in the nearby Sunny Bank Mills complex, and that is very much going strong, so we still have somewhere local to go and see live music. Hooray!

Lost: 2022
Loved: Diane Cluck

Originally published at http://colourthecortex.wordpress.com on March 7, 2023.