When I was in my late teens, I would go to Rock City, every Friday night.
Rock City was a mecca for heavy rock music fans.
From 9 till 2am, it would play none-stop tunes at eardrum-busting volume.
There would be the classic songs by the classic bands – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Queen, Whitesnake – but the best bit was when they would play something that was just breaking over in the US.
It was at Rock City I first heard Guns n’ Roses, Cinderella, Love/Hate, Badlands and countless others.
Eventually, Rock City gained an international reputation and so bands would not only send them copies of their new album before they were released, but they would ensure they visited and played at the venue as part of their World Tour.
I went to that smelly, sweaty, cramped and pulsating venue for absolute years.
Starting at the Tap and Tumbler pub round the corner before queuing up for entry in the sort of clothes a stripper would balk at before hanging around the edges of the club to say hello to the friends and acquaintances you knew before finally working your way through the heaving, throbbing masses to get into the middle of the dance floor so you could be swept up and pushed around by the intense energy of hundreds of people all loving the same thing at the exact same moment.
They were, quite frankly, some of the best times of my life.
I made friends.
It forged and influenced my love of music.
I discovered what being part of a community was really like.
It pushed me to experience and experiment with things I may never have done.
Which is all my way of justifying why – when I heard they were changing the floor after
40 years and were selling the old one off in pieces – I happily paid them £40 so I could own a piece of my history forever. [See pic at the top of this post]
Yes, it’s tragic.
Yes, it’s pathetic.
But as mid-life crises go, it’s less expensive than a Porsche.
Or an affair.