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A look at Friars Phase Three
Come to think of it, Phases 2 and 3 were also like chalk and cheese. They
epitomised the transition from England in the 70s to England in the 80s.
The Hall was originally called the Vale Hall and then became the Maxwell
Hall after the late Reg Maxwell whose brainchild it was. Promoting there
was a new experience altogether. There was a Box Office with a window for
ticket sales as opposed to a desk with a little portable till (W H
Smith). The building seemed vast with a balcony and connected into the
Aston Hall which also had a stage and provided increased capacity for the
venue. There was a lift and a projection room. The Backstage area had
Dressing Rooms both on the ground and first floors. I go into detail as
the building is soon to be demolished and to give a flavour of the changes
that we faced in taking Friars forward.
Of course, the capacity was much greater than the old Assembly Hall and
this allowed bigger, more expensive Bands to be presented. The Gig
listings show this. There were some difficulties however. For a start
there were numerous fire exits which could be used by the many
Aylesburians who wanted to get in for nothing. This meant that each exit
had to be manned by Junior Security Staff who had been recruited from the
AGS 6th Form and wore special tee shirts. Although the exits
were alarmed, by the time the Senior Security staff got there, the freedom
fighters were in! Moreover, AVDC had decided that glasses could not be
taken from the Bar areas into the main Hall or Balcony. This meant
positioning more Junior SS on each doorway, two per door. On top of that,
front of stage security was required meaning yet more staff with their
Friars tee shirts. This became especially necessary as were overtaken by
Punk. On Punk nights, the capacity crowd would be vigorously pogoing up
against the stage and somehow managing to simultaneously gob towards the
Band. The front stage security guys were often covered in gob by the end
of the night. Add to this, the ‘humpers’ that were required by the Bands
at mid-day or mid-afternoon to load in the Band’s gear…………..and out again
at the end of the night. Some of the ‘humpers’ and Security Staff have
since gone on to hold very senior positions in the stratospheric heights
of the Music Business. And moreover, admission to the venue had to be
controlled by Senior Security so that the Box Office could cope and issue
membership cards to new members. For some Shows all patrons were searched
so that knives, flails, steel capped boots etc could be confiscated and
held within the Box Office. A lot of staff were needed in the Maxwell
Hall!
And Bands were more demanding. Their contracts contained Riders that
frequently ran to many pages. Hot meals were often required for the
Artistes and Crew, with a separate provision of buffet, fresh fruit and
drinks in the Dressing Rooms. The arrangements were made by David Stopps
alongside his multitude of other tasks associated with the promotion of
the Concert. For Gala nights, of which there were many, I provided floral
decoration in the Dressing Rooms. As I recall, I drove up to New Covent
Garden Market to arrive no later than 4 am, in order to buy quantities of
roses, orchids, lilies, freesias and then to drive home, before going to
work. The supreme efforts made to accommodate Artistes paid dividends in
that Friars maintained a unique reputation amongst venues. Moreover, it
was interesting to see the effect that flowers have on artistes whose
reputation is fearsome (Lydon). Flowers can evoke early childhood
memories through their scent and visual effect.
And then there was the ‘Guest List’, a phenomenon that I do not recall
featuring much in Phases 1 and 2. In fact on any given night there would
be lots of Guest Lists……..the Band’s list, the Agent’s list, the
Promoter’s list, the Civic’s list and so on. Each name would usually be
+1 or even +2. It usually fell to me to deal with the Guest List. In
theory you just crossed off names as people arrived, but in practice it is
hard to scan hand written names written on scraps of paper whilst
remaining calm and welcoming. On occasions there were over a hundred
guests of varying degrees of importance. The least important guests were
often the rudest and most aggressive. Often people’s names were not ‘on
the list’. This required me to run and find David Stopps or go back into
the Band’s Dressing Room to see if the names were kosher or not. Usually,
not! Especially those parties of record company staff whom Bands would
invariably insist pay to come in. In fact I spent all night running
around after people and I seem to remember making Richard Branson pay one
time.
There were some truly wonderful nights in Phase 3. The ones that stick in
the memory are the Tuesday night when Iggy Pop and David Bowie played.
This was the first time that David Bowie had played live for several
years. We also had an extra special night when Genesis returned. By then
they were really a stadium band. The queue formed on Friday evening for
tickets that went on sale on Sunday morning. It snaked around the old
cattle market and refreshments were served to the queue early on the
Sunday morning. Then there was the mid-week date that The Police played,
and they are still a stadium band in 2008. Sting travelled
from the High Court in London where he was fighting a case against his
record company. Overall I particularly remember the number of iconic
American artistes who made the trip to Aylesbury …..The Pretenders,
Captain Beefheart, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Commander Cody, The
Ramones, Tom Petty, Mink Deville, Denis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Toots and
the Maytals, Spirit, Clint Eastwood to name but a few. Friars had become
world famous venue and Aylesbury a town with an identity.
The new Aylesbury Theatre opens in 2010 with a (standing) capacity of
2000. Promoters please note. Maybe the Glory Days will return?
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