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The Stranglers’ Live at The Hope and Anchor album cover |
Infamous tales from rock haven The Hope
There’s been many a wild night at prime punk venue the Hope and Anchor, writes Mark Blunden
DOWNSTAIRS used to be knee-deep in spit with chicken wire to protect the bar staff,” recalls Duncan Armstrong, manager of the Hope and Anchor.
Infamous tales from the Upper Street, Islington, music venue’s 1970s’ heyday abound, like the time Sex Pistol Sid Vicious was caught shooting up heroin in the toilets and U2 stormed off stage when only four people turned up their gig.
By day, the Hope and Anchor is an unassuming Victorian boozer. By night it is a living, breathing punk relic still at the cutting edge of British rock music, breaking bands long before they achieve fame or infamy.
This Easter Bank Holiday weekend it will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its 1977 Front Row Festival, which featured Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets, XTC and Tom Robinson.
Although the tradition of breaking new bands continues – McFly, anyone? – they will never match the tough proto-punks who gobbed and fought their way through sets in the early 70s.
Armstrong, though only in his 20s, has an encyclopeadeic knowledge of the venue’s history.
He says: “You’d have the mods outside, punks in the basement and skins in the main bar, then they started putting the music on and everything really started to happen.”
The basement bar even inspired a song – Max Splodge’s hit Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please, apparently an ode to the futility trying to get served at the Hope.
Splodge will perform at this weekend’s Hope and Anchor Festival.
Famous incidents consigned to history include one of U2’s first English gigs where the Irish supergroup played an ‘intimate’ show to four people. Fed up, they reportedly walked off stage after two songs.
Dire Straits were another ticket sale tragedy, playing – legend has it – to six people and a dog. Their debut single, Sultans of Swing, went to number one a fortnight later.
Camden Town’s Madness also filmed their One Step Beyond video at the pub.
Back in the 1970s, New York rockers The Ramones played the nearby Screen on the Green. Lead singer Joey Ramone, hacked off at being spat at by local punks, decamped to the Hope to encounter the cheery sight of Sid Vicious in the toilets with a syringe embedded in his arm.
But like much of the Hope’s history, such incidents exist only anecdotally and most photographs have disappeared over the years.
Since the late 19th century, the building has been variously a pub, a squat and a music venue.
By the end of the eighties, years of patronage took their toll and it closed briefly.
The pub reopened in its present form in the early 1990s – after much wrangling over its entertainment licence – and hosted groups such as Irish rockers Ash, who had a residency.
But there are some punk groups who can’t let go of the past, like the Parkinsons, an obscure four-piece.
Armstrong says: “The Parkinsons liked British punk and brought all the Hackney punks with them to the gig. The lead singer head butted the side of cymbal, split his head open and started flicking blood into the crowd.
“Then they set off fire extinguishers and started throwing them around. We had to turn the lights up and throw them out.
“There were no door staff at the time so it was just me and the DJ trying to get everyone out.”
But dramatic events have not been just consigned to the stage with Joy Division’s tragic frontman Ian Curtis having his first epileptic fit as he returned home from a Hope gig.
His widow Deborah Curtis remembers: “As a first London gig, the Hope and Anchor was a disappointment. Expecting the glamour of the capital city, Joy Division hadn’t realised they would be playing in a pub cellar and that all the equipment would have to be lowered in through a trap-door.”
Armstrong recalls his busiest-ever night when Pete Doherty and his former group, the Libertines, play the Hope.
He says: “I was assistant manager at the time and told my boss we needed more security but he was adamant it wasn’t going to be busy.
“I was waiting for it to go horribly wrong but it turned out alright, only the busiest we’ve ever been. People were queuing around the block and even trying to get in the dray hatch.
“This was even before Pete Doherty had turned up. He ambled in later on when everyone was getting to the point of massive irritation.”
The Hope and Anchor has survived largely due to its no-nonsense attitude.
Big-haired rockers Van Halen, while having never performed in Islington, would get short shrift if they demanded bowls of M&Ms with the brown ones removed.
Armstrong says: “You know what you get with the Hope and it’s not a case of having a rider. There’s a backstage area but it’s the dray room so you can sit in there with the barrels if you like. Every bands buys their own drinks.”
As far as flouncing, self-centered prima donnas, would-be rock gods can leave that attitude at the door. Armstrong adds: “Largely, the only prima donnas we have are bands who think they are just starting to get big. We’ve not had anyone famous giving us lip.”
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