The O₂ Academy Brixton began simply as the Brixton Astoria nearly 100 years ago on August 19, 1929. The grand cinema that featured a domed ceiling with artificial stars and Mediterranean-inspired interiors, was built for £250,000 and designed by Thomas Somerford and E.A. Stone.
Its debut included a screening of the Al Jolson part-talkie, The Singing Fool, and live BBC radio performances. It thrived for over 40 years as a major cinema and performance venue that bragged being the home of an iconic Compton organ.
The Astoria closed in the summer of 1972 after 43 years of operation, in part because single-screen theaters were being squeezed out by new fangled multiplexes.
That September, it briefly reopened as The Sundown Centre, a rock venue and disco, but shut down just four months later. When demolition was proposed in 1974, the community rallied to save the old girl, which they did, but then it pretty much sat empty for the remainder of the decade.
Music promoter Sean Treacy reopened it in 1981 as The Fair Deal, hosting acts like UB40 and The Clash. Despite a great start, the venture ultimately flopped.
In 1983, entrepreneur Simon Parkes bought the shuttered hall for a mere £1 and renamed it Brixton Academy. Under Parkes’ ownership, it became a premier concert jewel, hosting rock, reggae, and pop gigs in a space that could accommodate 4,900 comfortably.
It even serving as a rehearsal space for the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and The Police before they would head out on tour. By the end of the decade the Brixton Academy had regained its luster and was once again known as one of London's finest venues.
All of these groups recorded live albums at the Brixton Academy: Alexisonfire, Asking Alexandria, Babymetal, Bombay Bicycle Club, Carter USM, Damian Marley, Dave Matthews Band, Deaf Havana, Death in Vegas, Edgy In Brixton (The Fratellis), Franz Ferdinand, Gojira, Gregory Isaacs, Groove Armada, Hawkwind, Hole, Jamie T, Jimmy Eat World, Judas Priest, Kasabian, Machine Head, Mastodon, Moby, New Order, Of Mice & Men, Paramore, Pete Townshend, Pixies, Pop Will Eat Itself, PiL, Public Service Broadcasting, Queens of the Stone Age, Rammstein, Scarred (Gary Numan), Sepultura, Sex Pistols, Sizzla, Stiff Little Fingers, Stray Cats, The Wombats, Two Door Cinema Club.
And all of these artists loved the joint so much their live albums were simply called Live at the Brixton Academy - or something very close to that: Atari Teenage Riot, Brian May, Bullet For My Valentine, Chase & Status, Dido, Faith No More, Gary Numan, Good Charlotte, Inspiral Carpets, Motörhead, Pendulum, Soul II Soul.
Here's a few of the standout shows in the Brixton Academy's vast history:
The Clash headline Scargill’s Christmas Party, December 6 and 7, 1984
In December 1984, The Clash performed two consecutive nights at the hall for "Arthur Scargill's Christmas Party," to support the National Union of Mineworkers during the UK miners' strike.
These benefit concerts raised funds (and morale) for striking miners and their families. But they were also one of the last glimpses of what was left of the band as they were
It was also a great way for the venue to declare its own stance on issues.
“The established venues such as the Albert Hall and the Hammersmith Odeon wouldn’t touch this gig with a 10-metre pick handle," Parkes told the Guardian 2014.
"The last thing they wanted was several thousand angry, hyped-up miners led by, horror of horrors, a punk band. They were afraid their dainty seats might get broken," he said. "The Academy, on the other hand, was made for this kind of thing."
The Smiths last show, December 12, 1986
Morrissey, Johnny Marr an the lads played their final concert two weeks before the end of 1986 at Brixton Academy, and the audience never saw it coming.
The gig was a benefit for Steven Van Zandt's Artists Against Apartheid, which had originally been slated for the Royal Albert Hall a month earlier. But when guitarist Johnny Marr was injured in a car accident, it was rescheduled and moved to Brixton.
Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley opened the night. The Smiths closed their 14-song set with “Hand in Glove” spiked with Morrissey's haunting parting words: “I’ll probably never see you again.”
Nowhere in the show can you see any hint of impending doom or a sign of distress. In fact the band continued recording for months following the show with compositions like "Death of a Disco Dancer" and "Girlfriend in a Coma" which would make up their fourth and final album, Strangeways, Here We Come.
Morrissey's European Tour begins at the end of this month in Dublin, Ireland. Get your tix on his website.
Run-DMC, Beastie Boys - May 1987
Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys brought the Def Jam Together Forever Tour to Brixton Academy in 1987, breaking a hip-hop glass ceiling in the UK. Performing three sold-out nights in May, the two NYC rap acts delivered explosive sets that introduced British audiences to a new style who were both produced by Rick Rubin.
Run-D.M.C., already international stars, shared the stage with the rowdy, fast-rising Beastie Boys, whose antics included a go-go dancer in a cage, a DJ atop a giant six pack, and endless amounts of sophomoric tom foolery on the stage.
Hard to believe today, but this was a simpler time when rap concerts were rare in Britain, particularly with groups selling millions of records. Worse: the British press continually mocked the artists.
The Guardian equated the Beastie Boys’ arrival to the UK to the chaos of the Sex Pistols in the previous decade. And the headlines were unanimously negative.
“The Beastie Brats” – The Sun
“The Most Obnoxious Group in Pop” – Daily Mirror
“Beastie Boys: Worse Than the Sex Pistols” – Daily Express
“Ban This Filth!” – News of the World.
And yet, those Brixton gigs displayed hip-hop bum rushing into mainstream pop, internationally, while being embraced by the kids in the margins.
Pixies Reunion Tour, June 2004
“I went into this room that I didn’t know existed in a Brixton Academy, saw the backstage area, and all the bands were there," Pixies drummer David Lovering said, reminiscing to Under The Radar a few years ago.
"The Blur guys? Yeah. Coldplay, people? Just everyone," he said. "Oh, you know, all the British bands were in there. And I just thought 'whoops, I’m in the wrong room.' You know, and I just got out there.”
“We were very familiar with Brixton because we played there previously when our tours always came to London and it was very well and we always had fun time there and to now do a number of nights there was it was kind of ridiculous and kind of surreal,” Lovering said.
Even though they had played a few dozen reunion shows in the spring of 2004, after being broken up for 11 years, the four night stand at the Brixton made them realize they could do it. They could be a band again. That the music was good and magical and not a pain to make.
So they recorded and released a box set of those Brixton gigs.
Get your tickets to the venue's upcoming show on the Academy's website.
Other Venue Spotlights: The Apollo Theater, Aragon Ballroom, The Bluebird Cafe, Carnegie Hall, Chain Reaction, Commodore Ballroom, First Avenue, The Fillmore, The Gorge, The Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood Palladium, KIA Forum, Madison Square Garden, Massey Hall, The Metro, Nippon Budokan, O2 Arena, O2 Academy Brixton, Pappy & Harriet's Palace, Radio City Music Hall, Red Rocks, Royal Albert Hall, The Ryman Auditorium, Slane Castle, The Sphere, Staples Center, Stubb's Bar-B-Q, Sydney's Qudos Bank Arena, The Viper Room, The Whisky, 9:30 Club
