What happened before it became one of the UK’s celebrated underground music venues…ġ888 – 89 De Grey Street built (residential household).ġ923 – Liquor licence granted – The Victory Club and Institute.ġ933 – Imaginatively re-named De Grey Club. The upstairs of the building, accessed through a private door just inside the main entrance, provided living quarters for the club’s subsequent owners. Toilets were to the rear of the building and could only be used by walking through the concert room. The bar was located between front and back rooms, the serving hatch to the front room providing panoramic views of the concert hall. The layout of the club consisted of two downstairs rooms, one a front taproom located to the immediate left of the main front entrance, the second a larger concert room at the rear, with a maximum capacity of about 220. To the rear of the club lies a railway embankment, once the main goods line between Hull and Barnsley, which runs parallel with De Grey Street itself, and is still used for freight to this day. Located at 89 De Grey Street, which runs between Beverley Road, a main arterial route into the city, and Newland Avenue, a busy shopping thoroughfare, it was, and still is, essentially a down-at-heel residential area with a smattering of retail outlets and small industrial workshops and warehouses. The New Adelphi club in Hull was originally a three bedroom terraced house, complete with garden, built in 1888 as part of the city’s progressive northward expansion. Finally, it’s an argument for why venues such as the Adelphi should be exempted by the local council from the excesses of such legislation and left to continue the unrecognised public and cultural service they provide at both a local and national and, indeed, international level. It’s also about proposed government legislation, in the form of Public Entertainment Licencing (The PEL), and the threat that it poses to grass roots venues and the cultural values they represent. This is the story of those years: of Paul Jackson and Yosser, his dog of the bands and performers, local, national and international, who have played at the venue and of the people who have frequented and supported the club over the years. The Adelphi Club has been open for twenty years now. He just smiled and said: ‘Well, they were welcome to pop in for a pint. He’d been too busy at his own club the night before to attend himself. The next night we told Paul Jackson about the gig and what had been said. And now they were famous – but they hadn’t forgotten the importance of their roots. They had become good friends with Paul Jackson and his dog over the years. They spent some of their most formative years, from 1985 onwards, playing at this small venue, learning their trade. During their rise to fame, from Red Rhino and Fire Records to the world-famous Island record label, Pulp performed at the Adelphi on many occasions. Yosser was Paul’s dog, (but sadly is now no longer with us). Paul Jackson was, and still is, the owner. Or just where in Hull it was that Pulp could always get a gig when no one else, apart from a couple of venues in their home town, would give them one.
Only a few would know who Paul Jackson, or Yosser was. Strange to think that, of the 2600 people screaming at this introduction, only a few would actually know what Jarvis was on about.
“There was a time when only Hull and Sheffield would give us a gig,” proclaims the tall, charismatic frontman, with humility in his voice. The crowd goes berserk, 15 year old girls wailing like banshees. “Does anyone know Paul Jackson?” he asks. The lights go down, tension builds and the crowd erupts as Jarvis Cocker materialises, microphone in hand, tall and majestic on the precipice of the stage. We missed the support band through hanging around in the bar and just managed to make the arena before the main act: Pulp, live at one of the most acoustically barren music venues in the country. November 28th 1998, Humberside Ice Arena, Hull. Published in October 2004 to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of The New Adelphi Club.
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