Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

The Fridge is back! ish

supercity

Back, and readjusting
Here's a fabulously vague press release, issued today. I'd love to se it re-established as live venue. I remember seeing The Fall there years and years ago and it was cracking. Never been much of a clubber, so didn't go there as much as I would have done. Anyway, here's the press gumf.

***London Brixton Fridge***

***Original Owners’ Return Heralds New Era For Legendary Venue***



The management of The Fridge in Brixton has been taken back into the safe hands of owners Andrew Czezowski and Susan Carrington, and is currently being dusted down and spruced up as a major live music venue once again. The Fridge has been rewired, cleaned up and a massive new PA and lighting system has been installed, adding to the wonderful full size stage facilities, with direct loading from rear of venue, parking space, and three changing rooms with toilet and shower facility.



Over £150,000 has been spent on re-establishing the Fridge as a mainstream live music venue, capable of staging both intimate, 500 capacity club gigs (with the balcony closed) as well as 1400 capacity concerts and indoor festivals. Originally opened in 1913 as a cine-variety theatre, it retains all the original Edwardian Baroque /Art Deco friezes (highlighted in gold on black) and boasts fantastic acoustics and sightlines for gig goers – as old cinemas always do.



The Fridge in Brixton is one of only a handful of decent mid-size venues left in the capital; with demise of the Astoria, the only comparable venues (on a Tube line) remaining in operation are Koko in Camden and The Forum in Kentish Town. Co-incidentally, only the Fridge and Koko are fully independent and NOT part of any major chain of venues.



A wide range of live gigs and club nights are in the process of being organised for January 31st onwards, with various outside promoters already getting back on board and keen to put The Fridge back on to the national gig circuit map.



Having begun their careers as seminal live rock gig promoters (the duo established The Roxy, the world’s first punk club in Covent Garden London in 1976/77) Andrew, [ex-manager of the Damned, Generation X with Billy Idol, Adam Ant etc.] and Susan then opened the Fridge, shortly after the riots in Brixton in 1981.



The Fridge hosted the first gigs of acts such as the Pet Shop Boys, Jimmy Sommerville & Bronski Beat, Sade, Nick Cave with The Bad Seeds and Marc Almond, and later promoted everyone from The Sun Ra Arkestra (their last ever gig in the UK), to Eartha Kitt, Grace Jones, St Etienne, Roy Ayres, Gil Scott-Herron, Nico, (unfortunately also her last gig ever) and Take That. With Robbie.



The Fridge additionally won a reputation for world famous club nights such as Talkin' Loud and Soul II Soul, and then drove the explosion of rave in the 90’s by becoming the home for long-running trance nights Escape from Samsara, Return to the Source, Pendragon and Logic.



Gay night Love Muscle pushed buttons and boundaries to such an extent it changed the direction of Gay night clubbing. Andrew and Susan also created the most successful Lesbian club in the World, first with Eves Revenge, followed by Venus Rising, regularly attracting over 1300 lesbian clubbers every month.


In January of 2004 Andrew and Susan let out the Fridge and took a long deserved break until November 3rd 2008, when they took back full management and ownership of the best club in London, located in Brixton, the capital of live music in South London.



www.fridge.co.uk
 
That's pretty much the November press release.

Although I wish them well, given that the Astoria is closing (and seemingly every other venue in town as well), shouldn't there be a more impressive line-up of live music gigs by now:confused:
 
That's pretty much the November press release.

Although I wish them well, given that the Astoria is closing (and seemingly every other venue in town as well), shouldn't there be a more impressive line-up of live music gigs by now:confused:


Maybe they're not ready for live shows yet? It'll be one of those things that happens slowly at first, then takes off I reckon.
 
Maybe they're not ready for live shows yet? It'll be one of those things that happens slowly at first, then takes off I reckon.

Lead time for a touring band of that size is three months, usually more. Considering they took it over in November, they'd have to have something fall in their lap to get a booking for Feb, unless they could persuade Doherty to come down.
 
Yeah, exactly. I'm not surprised they haven't booked anything in yet. I imagine they're easing their way back into to it - starting off with some club nights and doing the things they're familiar with. Then adding on gigs once that's all running smoothly.
 
There's a bit in Music week about it and no doubt agents all know by now. It's just got a little more corporate than it was back in the day but hopefully they'll get the bookings. Live Nation do quite a bit of stuff in Koko so maybe they'll send some biz down south.
 
plus they have the carling/hmv brixton academy to compete with

Actually there's a point.
Firstly, when the Fridge was doing well on live stuff, was the Academy going through problems? I wasn't in London at the time but remember the Academy being up for sale to some godbotherers.
Secondly, more bands play bigger venues these days than in the early 90s. Playing the Academy used to be an achievement but recently we've seen Hard-Fi sell it out five nights in a row and even the fucking Pigeon Detectives do two nights.

I hope the refit is a good one and they can battle it out with Koko, Matter, the Scala and the rejuvenated (HMV) Garage which is supposed to be reopening soonish.
 
is that way behind schedule now?

Dunno but there was a press release from HMV and Mama Group (aka Channelfly/Barfly) saying eignt or so venues were going to be partnered with HMV and that the Garage was one of them, so it reopening must be on the cards. I love that place but when it was planning to reopen last year it had a load of cack bookings. Maybe it was just a time and a place.

Was actually going to post something at the time in music on this as it seemed an interesting venture for a retailer but wonder how that would affect band merch.
 
why would the fridge be in competition with the academy? one's 1200 capacity (at a guess), the other's 5000 odd. two complete different propositions. its competition is scala and koko. the garage is only 500-600 capacity. and koko has such a terrible reputation that all the fridge needs to do is stick in a decent PA and not fuck up the sight lines in any way, and it'll work. it's not like people aren't willing to go to brixton because they flock to the academy shows.
 
why would the fridge be in competition with the academy? one's 1200 capacity (at a guess), the other's 5000 odd. two complete different propositions. its competition is scala and koko. the garage is only 500-600 capacity. and koko has such a terrible reputation that all the fridge needs to do is stick in a decent PA and not fuck up the sight lines in any way, and it'll work. it's not like people aren't willing to go to brixton because they flock to the academy shows.

well, for some reason bands in the past couple of years have tended to progress from one sellout at the Scala, Electric Ballroom or Dingwalls (none of them exactly booked-up places) straight to the Academy

maybe the economic problems will downsize things a bit
 
i know what you mean, but i think the mid size bands, who would never fill the academy, will find the fridge a decent option. the kind of animal collective/of montreal type/size band. usually play ulu or koko, but fancy a change.
 
This is good news. The fridge has been a bit of a depressing sight the last couple of years. Would be good if they start doing some decent club nights as well as bands and that.
Is the fridge bar in the same ownership? I haven't been in there for a while either.
 
I'm quite excited about this. I remember going to see gigs there in the late 80s possibly early 90s (does this sound right?) - it would have been pre-Happy Mondays era and probably something gothy like The Mission. (I'll have to check with friends who have still-functioning memories). Anyway - I don't really like big venues, it'd be great to have this right down the street and doing good stuff again!
 
Back
Top Bottom