The first gig I ever attended may have been at the Bristol Colston Hall on 28th November 1971. I say may have been because I can’t remember the actual year, never mind the exact date, but a brief search through cyberspace brings me to conclude that this was the date. The headliner was one Elton John and his two piece band, bass player Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson, who is still with Elton today.
Elton was touring his new album Madman Across The Water, the only Elton album I liked enough to actually buy, and as I recall, he was brilliant. I’d love to tell you that Elton was the first rock act I ever saw live, but that ‘honour’ goes to ever-so-jolly cowboy hat wearing England Dan and John Ford Coley, all ‘yee haw’, ‘it’s great to be here in England’ and actually some decent songs. I loved live music and thereon embraced the most enjoyable way to develop tinnitus, paving the way for increasing deafness as the years went by. Regrets? I’ve had a few but I can’t hear most of them these days.
From that day onwards, gigs became a regular thing. The original 10cc, the original Roxy Music with Brian Eno, Santana, Jethro Tull, Status Quo, who were once supported by the mighty Montrose, ELO, with and post Roy Wood, Neil Diamond, Ten Years After, Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were supporting Golden Earring and blew them off stage and many, many more. However, the list of artists I didn’t see is, frankly, shameful.
Derek and the Dominos, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Slade, T Rex, Bob Marley and the Wailers and, most shamefully of all, The Clash. It must be said that I did not miss all these stars because of bad choices. You had to queue for tickets in those days and bunking off school and later work was never really an option. To this day, I have never seen any of these acts, not least because some are dead, some bands are no longer together and in the case of Stevie Wonder he was never quite in my must-see-at-all-costs list. The Colston Hall was named after a slaver, one Edward Colston (or the street the hall stands on, depending on who you listen to), and when it was closed in 2018 for refurbishment, the decision was taken to change the name to the Bristol Beacon.
The new hall, three times over budget (the cost ballooned from £45m to £132m), reopened a mere three years late in November 2023, enabling Bristol to once more have a place where upwards of 1800 people (2100 standing) could see a concert. It took until last night, Friday 27 September 2024, for me to see my first post uplift gig.
We chose not to bother with the support act and enjoy a pre show meal and pint or two. Arriving at the Beacon, we were immediately greeted with the announcement that the headline act, Jordan Rakei, was about to go on stage, some 20 minutes before the times indicated by the Beacon’s website. We went straight in and the soul, jazz, alternative R&B, trip hop musician had already started his set.
I am of a certain age where I would rather sit at a gig than stand and so we began our search in near darkness for ‘unreserved seating’ and we found it pretty well straight away. There were not that many seats but the ones that were there not well populated and we got a fine view of the stage, a little left of the sound desk.
This was the fourth time I had seen Rakei, starting at the Thekla, followed by the O2 Academy, SWX and now at the Beacon, from a few hundred stragglers to a packed concert hall. A well-deserved reward to a hard-working and seriously talented singer, musician and songwriter. Despite a mid show wobble – me, with my usual big crowd allergy and need to escape – I thoroughly enjoyed the gig. As for the hall itself, well, from what I saw and heard, I loved it.
We arrived too late to enjoy the hospitality but the hall itself was beautiful. I feared that the excellent acoustics of the old hall might be lost in the modernisation but I needed have worried. If anything, it was better, aided and abetted I’m sure by a superb sound system employed by the artist and his seven-piece band. I also found the toilet facilities – again, vital at my age – to be more than adequate and easily accessible and the staff appeared well-trained, efficient and friendly. I had no complaints at all.
We are incredibly lucky, living by the route of Bristol’s excellent Metrobus, and after a post match pint, we simply walked onto the nearby city centre and boarded our return bus for home.
The elephant in the room for many, mainly older, Bristolians is the name change from Colston Hall to Bristol Beacon. I grew up with the Colston Hall and I thought it would be hard to call it something else. When I was young, I had no idea who Edward Colston was or indeed that the hall was named after anyone called Colston. Regular readers will not be surprised to learn that I didn’t think about it very much until much later on when Colston’s grim life as a slaver became more and more well known. You may remember when Colston’s statue was torn down and chucked in the harbour. Knowing now what I didn’t before, I just wondered why it had not been removed many years before. As for the Colston Hall, things and times change. I know that some old folk will continue to call it the Colston Hall and frankly I couldn’t care less whether they do. I’m happy with the Bristol Beacon and in 20 years or so will everyone else be.
The Beacon is all I need in terms of music. I don’t need an arena (says the bloke going to see Toto in an arena next February!) because most of the acts I listen to could probably never fill one. For lovers of Disney on Ice, Simply Red, Lionel Ritchie, Strictly Live and Culture Club, don’t worry: your arena will come. The middle of the road big guns will be here soon, dynamic pricing, a tenner a pint and fake plastic trees by the entrance, once you’ve mortgaged the house to pay for parking, you won’t have to wait much longer.
It’s been a long road from Elton John to Jordan Rakei (53 years, actually), but the Colston Hall/Bristol Beacon holds many happy memories for me, not least the Doobie Brothers and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Hopefully, there are trunks of memories still to come. Long may you run, the Bristol Beacon. You were mint.
