Arriving at Bristol Temple Meads railway station on Friday evening, I was reminded how grim it is to arrive near the centre of our great city. Whilst the Stapleton Road and Lawrence Hill areas are not exactly glorious to behold as the train trundles towards its final destination, the scene to your left as you approach the station building must feel what it’s like arriving in Chernobyl. Spaces semi-bulldozed to the ground, the hideous old shell of the Royal Mail building – whilst a bomb hasn’t hit it, you do wish one would.
Arriving from the south isn’t much better and you do wonder what the architects have been up to leaving such a mess behind.
Bristol is not unique to grim arrivals. London’s stations are quite dreary too, not least Paddington with its grimy old tenements and graffiti covered walls. You would think the powers-that-be might realise that it’s off-putting to the casual visitor and probably quite depressing for the resident. At least there is a plan for Bristol by the railway station where in two years we will have our own Bristol Arena. No longer will we need to travel to Birmingham or London to see the X Factor Live or the Strictly Tour. It will all been on our doorsteps. And what a good idea to build the arena by the main railway station. I am just worried there will be too many rail replacement bus services just to make a mockery of everything.
I am quite well-served in Bristol by the Colston Hall where I can see most of the bands I like. Few of my favourite acts are arena friendly, or indeed popular enough to fill an arena, so I am not missing much.
If the truth be known, I don’t care much for arenas. I have seen shows at 10,000 seat halls and the atmosphere is not always the best. The fact that you are sitting hundreds of yards away does not help matters but even that pales into insignificance compared with stadium gigs. I have done a few shows at the Cardiff Millennium Stadium and they were okay, but Wembley, where you can’t see the band except via a large screen – what’s that all about?
The change in how we consume music can be illustrated by the growth in arenas. We are buying less music these days and watching more live music and live music featuring the big names is where the money is. It costs a fortune to make a record and you are unlikely to make that much money unless you sell an awful lot of copies. But even the outlay to play an arena will easily be recouped before the profits really roll in. So we will get the big names of popular music in Bristol and they will sell out like they do everywhere else.
It’s about time Bristol came fully into the 21st century. For too long, too many people have been content to accept what they’ve been given, which isn’t a lot. Less than mediocre sports teams, no major entertainment venues and awful traffic problems. Our leaders have treated Bristol as if it was a large village, but no longer.
I still think it’s a great city, even without a decent sports team and arena, because we’ve nearly got the lot in Bristol. Hopefully when the arena finally arrives and the dilapidated buildings are flattened, Bristol will rise still further in what it has to offer. No one can deny it’s about bloody time!
