Song of the Week #32
Does anybody else’s local city still have the ruins of old live music venues on the streets, or is it just Leeds?
Standing as a living obituary, the Cockpit on Swinegate still has the blue sign standing proud over a bomb shelter-looking facade of brushed still, buried into the railway bridge. It was a proud 3-piece venue that held a myriad of gigs that my friends and I attended throughout our teenage years. I get reminded every time I drive past it that more and more these days there isn’t room in a variety of business sectors for the ‘little guys’. Everybody will have had THAT music venue, the one that when you went to live shows and saw tour dates printed on posters you looked for, because it felt like home. Whether it was this or other venues in Leeds, such as Rios or The Well, the Wardrobe is arguably the only independent venue left, which is flabbergasting in itself. Despite all the trips to various O2 academies and independent venues up and down the country however, the cockpit was still the one that I held nearest and dearest to my heart.
Why? Who can say. It stank of sweat and beer, the curved steel roof standing so low down meant that there was little to no ventilation for the crowd, but more often than not, when you went it was with friends, and it meant a good live show and good times were to be had. As we have eluded to many times over these Song of the Week blogs, music is so often intrinsically linked to memories. I am in no doubt that I am looking back through rose tinted glasses at a venue that was probably in reality, a real shithole. But does that take anything away from the shows there or the memories attached to them? Not at all.
This Song of the Week comes from the first gig I went to at the Cockpit and is my own homage to the venue. The original lineup of Heaven’s Basement (one that could have gone very far indeed before everybody departed) were the only supporting act and warmed the crowd up. Then Shinedown - yes, I forgot about them too - took to the stage, started playing and the place erupted. A sea of movement and sound from 500 people in every direction was spellbinding and you couldn’t help but become enveloped into it. This Song of the Week is the opening song from the setlist and upon re-listening to it, it didn’t fail to bring me right back to that beer sodden venue the size of a classroom. RIP to the independent music venues we’ve lost over the years.