I was very sad to hear
the news via Twitter yesterday that one of the UK’s best small-scale music
venues, The Square in Harlow, had finally been pulled down.
This had been on the cards for quite some time - I remember
discussing its closure with Phill Jupitus when Glyn and I interviewed him for
the More Than Mostly Comedy Podcast back in January 2014 - but that didn’t
soften the blow; you mightn’t have thought what wasn’t exactly the prettiest
building in the prettiest of towns would be held in such affection by so many,
but it really was; in its time, The Square played host to the likes of Blur,
Coldplay, Eddie Izzard and more, including a band called Big Day Out that
featured me in its ranks. We played the Square numerous times and recorded the drums for our
‘Seven Heavenly Lemony Lemons from a Seven-Eleven in Devon’ CD there, with
Chris’ kit set up on the stage while I played a guide guitar into his
headphones; it was our second home, in a musical sense at least.
I first played
there in 1998/9 when the band was still a four-piece, which worryingly was
nearly twenty years ago. It was also the scene of the first and third occasion
we supported The Supernaturals, the first time being the moment when things started to happen for us. It was always a gig you’d look forward
to, not least because you’d always get a good sound, which is rare in
those type of venues; it wasn’t until I did my first professional tour in the
BIll Kenwright show Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven in 2002 that I learnt you could
actually have what you wanted in your
monitor, though at least at The Square, you’d come close.
It’s strange to
think a place that lingers so vividly in my memory no longer exists. I don’t
know why it couldn’t have been saved when so many people clearly valued it. For
me, it wasn’t just the scene of so many happy musical memories; it was also
where I met my wife. Perhaps that was why they condemned it.