#206

:grinning:

Where you in reading when someone got shot outside ‘the matrix’? Might have been before your time.
That was pretty wild

#207

I think it was just as I moved there -I never went inside the Matrix, did you?

(I went in Brannigans once on a forced work Christmas party trip. We had gone to a crappy chain restaurant along the canal, and pretty much every vegetarian thing on the menu was out that evening, so I ended up having some chips while everyone else had a full meal, then we had to go to Brannigans. The organiser was one of those terrifying compulsory fun types, so I had to go in there for a bit before leaving.)

#208

Brannigans!!! :grinning: that was a shit place! Definitely ended up there a few times.
I used to go everywhere really, no quality control at all
I think I went to the matrix once to see the chemical brothers but this is a very hazy memory that I might have made up or got confused with something else.
:+1:

#209

Like it doesn’t sound right as I think they would have been quite a big deal at the time I’m thinking of and I think they would have been at larger venues? Dunno!

#210

Wouldn’t they have been at the student union or the sports hall by the festival ground more likely?

#211

Yeah exactly - they almost definitely would have been at reading rivermead but that is very much not what I remember.
Saw loads of good stuff there! Great days!

#212

Ha! Some evidence of a sort -


“
The Matrix has drawn some of the dance world’s biggest acts in its two years, including Fat Boy Slim, the Chemical Brothers, Goldie and Radio 1’s Dreem Team.”

Apologies for the digression!

#213

Even though I know the Rivermead is a proper venue and all, my mental image of the inside is always of a school disco setup put on an indoor basketball court. (Even though I know they have better equipment, sound etc, it never quite loses that school talent show in the hall vibe)

#214

:blush: Woo!!

#215

to this day I can’t read the word “Cathouse” without reflexively cringing

#216

Brannigans, Rivermead… what nostalgia!

#217

you got away with drinking at a bar at 13 and 14?

wow i was seriously uncool

then again, i was a child

1 Like
#218

14 yeah. (I just put 98-99 to make sure people didn’t get to enjoy themselves with any New Rock or Electroclash or whatever)

I grew up in a scummy area where they didn’t care as long as you can see over the bar, they’d serve you. Don’t think I got ided until I went to university.

Also many people including me had lax to irresponsible parents.

3 Likes
#219

I found they started getting stricter when 14s and over gigs came in. Went to loads of gigs underage when it was supposed to be over 18s and nobody seemed bothered by gangs of GCSE students getting alco pops at club nights etc. By the time I was in my early/mid 20s gave up drinking at gigs as I was constantly ID’d and couldn’t be bothered taking my passport everywhere.

#220

Didnt realise Brannigans was a chain. Explains a lot.

#221

I didn’t realise either but it makes sense because the Reading one was in the shopping centre.

#222

Yes! I was past clubbing by 1998 tbh, but in my shit local alternative night days these were all floor filling bangers. See also: Wash It Off by Foetus, Add It Up by Violent Femmes, Good Taste by The Cramps, Civilisation Street by Culture Shock (this might have just been a West Country favourite), Headhunter by Front 242 or Change by Killing Joke…bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.

#223

Where was that? Could usually count on Add It Up, but Headhunter and Change would represent a good night indeed :thinking:

#224

Plymouth, early 90s. The alternative nights moved round a couple of venues - upstairs at Charlies on a Monday, Studio on a Thursday, back room of the Academy on Saturdays till it closed down and we went to Connections instead. For a shit provincial town where most of the nightlife was sailors on shore leave having fights there was a really good scene there in those days.

#225

I’m pretty sure The Chemical Brothers played the opening night at The Matrix. I remember wanting to go but not being able to for some reason - like being 17 or something.