A punk rocker’s diary entry on venue closures, stadium excess, and finding the actual scene still breathing underneath it all
Right, so Corsica Studios shut. G-A-Y too. Two venues that actually meant something, gone within months of each other, while The Weeknd plays Wembley Stadium two nights running and Ariana Grande’s doing ten shows at the O2 with a clear-bag policy so strict you’d think she was smuggling contraband rather than a spare cardigan. I read that and just sat with my tea going cold, genuinely fuming.
The Actual Gig I Went To Instead
Saturday night I was down Electric Ballroom in Camden for a proper loud one, sweat dripping off the ceiling, ears ringing for two days after. That’s the stuff. Not stadium seating, not a merch pop-up you need a reservation for. Just a room full of people who actually want to be there getting absolutely battered by noise on purpose. I came home smelling like a bin fire and I loved every second of it.
Why The Closures Actually Sting
It’s not really about nostalgia, whatever people say. Corsica Studios wasn’t precious to me because of memories, it was precious because it was a room that let strange, loud, unfashionable music happen without needing to justify itself to a marketing department first. Every time one of these places goes, the remaining rooms get more crowded and more expensive, and the whole ecosystem tightens up a notch.
What I’m Actually Doing About It
Started properly turning up to the smaller nights again, the ones with maybe forty people in, because apparently just complaining online does absolutely nothing for anyone’s electric bill. There’s a new venue supposedly opening out west at Olympia, three and a half thousand capacity, which sounds promising if it doesn’t end up booked solid with the same six touring acts everyone already knows.
Where This Leaves Me
Genuinely torn between rage at the state of things and this stubborn, actually pretty stupid optimism that the scene always finds a way to keep going in smaller rooms nobody’s paying attention to yet. That’s usually where the good stuff actually starts anyway.
