Live at the Beacon

I can only imagine how angry those anonymous keyboard warriors who comment on stories in the Bristol Post will be at the news that the Bristol Colston Hall has been renamed the Bristol Beacon. I can only imagine because I cannot be bothered to read it. It will be the usual stuff, namely that the Colston Hall name should have been kept, it was a waste of money, political correctness gone mad and some insult including variations of the word ‘woke’. In the eyes of so may old, white Bristolians, nothing should ever change.

Cards on the table, I always felt the name Colston Hall should be retained. Not because he was in any way a good bloke – by definition those who made their riches from the slave trade could never be good blokes – but because we should never forget our history. Having said all that, I was never prepared to die in a ditch about it.

I love the Colston Hall. I have seen everyone from Lynyrd Skynyrd, Santana, Crosby, Stills and Nash, 10cc, ELO, Elton John, the Doobie Brothers, Underworld, Brian Wilson, Manic Street Preachers, Maroon 5, Neil Diamond and Roxy Music through to Mick McManus and Big Daddy. Until the arrival of the big arenas, everywhere except Bristol, the Colston Hall was a big venue. Even now, there are few acts I want to see in an arena. Give me a Colston Hall or a Hammersmith Apollo (my very favourite venue) any day of the week. Now it’s the Bristol Beacon. Fine by me.

Times change, people change. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, racists, homophobes and sexists, or Jim Davidson as we know him, were popular entertainers. Making jokes about people of colour, the LGBT community and women was mainstream. No one made the decision to ban them. We just evolved. We didn’t find it funny anymore.  And so it was that statues of slave traders and concert halls named after them felt wrong.

When my generation is dead and gone, I suspect younger Bristolians will simply refer to the Beacon. You will see gigs at the Beacon, have a pint and a burger at the Beacon, you will walk past the Beacon. Some will still call it the Colston Hall because, for many people, nostalgia is all they have. And happy memories of a time that never was.

In the grand scheme of things, the renaming of the Colston Hall is not high in my list of priorities. A deadly virus and its effects on family and friends, in terms of health and livelihoods is far more important to me.

When the Beacon reopens next year, I can’t wait to see some live music. The music scene is better than it has been for decades and once we start recovering from the virus, more bands, old and new, will be out there.

Yes, let’s have an arena for Bristol, too. Instead of having to travel to Cardiff or Birmingham to see Strictly or Britain’s Got Talent live, let people drive a couple of miles up the road to see it. If people want to see the heritage acts like Elton John, Rod Stewart and the remnants of Queen, then let’s build somewhere local for them.

We can have it all if we want. I’ve seen many of the best gigs in my life at the Colston Hall. Hopefully, there are trunks of memories to come at the Beacon.

Edward Colston’s statue now stands defaced and vandalised in storage and the concert hall in his name is now called the Beacon. Of course, we shouldn’t forget the past, but we shouldn’t be tied to it, either.

The important thing for me is to reopen the Beacon and listen to the music. Everything else is just noise.