Cricketers (baramall lane)
Grapes??
which is the best venue to put a punkish gig on??
Stu ?? u might contact me ?? i dont know??
you know me..

00ps should read bramall lane )


Bands ??
skeptix, Crashed out, vas deferens,
superyob,, not on 1 show by the way.. Ha ha..

Cheers..
D

Depends. Having had punk bands play at my premises in the past I'm loathed to encourage them to play at all. Not because of the bands - they're fine, respectful, well rehearsed and so on....but in my experience the audience they bring tend to think they've got the God given right to grafitti anything they can, bring underage drinkers along, not buy a drink at all and just hang around looking like a spare part, of those who bought a drink many thought it'd be good to smash the glasses, kick chairs over, be loud and vulgar and damage things.

This isnt a one off either, after about half a dozen bands playing we eventually decided to avoid booking most of them. This is a great shame because it's not the musicians who are at fault.

You need a venue which doesn't have fixtures and fittings and has plenty of space for the audience to jump around. I remember telling one band that they were great but I simply couldn't have them back because their audience let them down by the amount of damage caused and until they could either have a word with their mates or control their crowd then it would ruin their reputation on the gigging scene.

The old Classic Rock Bar didn't have door staff. We never needed them. The only time we had to stand guard was when punk bands played as we knew that all hell would be let loose (don't get me wrong, I love punk music but as someone trying to run a business it's not fun to deal with the expense of the repairs afterwards).

I'd suggest that before approaching a venue, you can assure them that you'll have your own security to stop idiots from getting out of hand and ask the venue to remove all seating, provide plastic glasses, not hand out bottles, etc. This may sound extreme, but alas it's my experience.

Spose it depends on how many are likely to turn up ....... Grapes is better at first thought as there is much more room, and it is all upstairs so a bit more contained ....... would have maybe said the Deep End instead of either, but it's currently *ahem* unwell ......

Cricketers but you do have to take a PA system in

d suggest that before approaching a venue, you can assure them that you'll have your own security to stop idiots from getting out of hand and ask the venue to remove all seating, provide plastic glasses, not hand out bottles, etc. This may sound extreme, but alas it's my experience.

the cricketers and grapes are fine with punk gigs, myself and rich (bickles cab) hold about 50 punk gigs a year between us in sheffield, both at these two venues and DnR live and Zero (the plug), we've had one incident at Zero and one at the Grapes - both the same lad.

i'm afraid your experience is just that, your experience, we're welcome (in fact more than welcome) at all the other venues - After city invasion this summer at The Foundry (Sheff Uni) where we had around 900 punks & skins in, the bar manager actually told Penny it made a change to deal with a pleasant crowd...

ultimately punk shows involve pretty hectic dancing, it was never a sedate scene, the rough and tumble goes hand in hand with the music.... if you want sedate & polite book shoe gazing indie...

Dave - as carcrash said you need a PA for the cricketers, but on the other hand they only charge a nominal hire fee - or it may be free depending on the night etc, the grapes is only slightly bigger and charge £60-£80 or something in that region but has a PA and an engineer (who is there solely to turn off all the monitors and mic up your stuff just to turn it all off and complain that your backline is too loud)... but the bands you've listed unless you can get them to play on a door take and then charge a cheap door £3 or something won't get that big a crowd in sheffield - there's not much of a traditional Oi scene left - and the other punk bands you've listed mean nothing to none of the younger punk kids.. they're not big fans of the whole reforming bands scenario....