Last updated on 01/01/2025
The Shed: A Brief History.
The History of The Shed. Part 3.
By Trevor Locke.
31st December 2024.
Thirty years ago today The Shed opened its doors for the first time and went on to become one of Leicester’s iconic music venues.
Introduction
In Part 1, I set out the history of Leicester’s longest-running live music venue in celebration of the venue’s 30th year since it opened. In Part 2, I recalled some of the bands and solo artists that played there and some of the acts that made it the place it was. In this part, I dig back through the archives to recall some of the venue’s most memorable shows. Before I do that, I want to mention Leicester’s other venues. During the heyday of The Shed, Leicester had many other live music venues.
Other Venues
For the sake of balance, there were many other live music venues operating during the days of The Shed. Not least The Charlotte, which closed several times only to re-open again under a new management. In 1989, Andy Wright took over the Princess Charlotte pub, having worked there since 1985 when it was a traditional public house. Its name changed to The Charlotte and it began to be a permanent live music venue until it closed for good in 2010.
The Musician. In 2000, Darren Nockles became a promoter at the Musician, a venue in Wharf Street East, previously called The Bakers Arms (there was also a pub called The Barkers Arms in Blaby and that too played a significant role in the history of Leicestershire music but for very different reasons.) The old Musician closed its doors for the last time on 31st December 2004 but re-opened in the following year. The Musician reopened on 1 February 2005, actually smaller than before because of the repositioning of the toilets, and live music continued unabated until May. The venue continued to put on shows on a regular basis for several years thereafter.
The Soundhouse opened in 2010, in Southampton Street, behind the old offices of the Leicester Mercury. Prior to that the premises operated as The Queen Victoria pub (otherwise called The Queen Vic) and it was there that bands played from time to time. Since it started, Soundhouse has operated as a specialised live music venue with a stage, sound desk, dedicated PA system, and professional stage lighting.
The Donkey, in Welford Road, became a live music venue in 2005. This large pub provided a weekly programme of live music and many notable acts have performed there. Some would say that it provided a wider range of music styles than some other venues.
A cafe in the High Street – The Crumbling Cookie – rose to become one of the foremost venues for live music when it opened its room in the basement, when it was called The Cookie Jar. The venue is still operating under the name Big Difference and still provides music events.
The Music Cafe, in Park End Street (off Braunstone Gate), has been putting on live music gigs for many years. In 2005, Leicester organisation Get Your Band On put on a rock night there with Ictus, The A.I.Ds, No One Knows and Glitch. The venue later changed it name to The Music Cafe from its previous title The Jam Jar.
It was not until 2010 that Leicester was to acquire a large-scale venue for music, with the opening of the O2 Academy in the grounds of the University of Leicester. One of the acts to perform on the opening night was Professor Green. Prior to the opening of the O2, the University of Leicester students’ union held major rock concerts in the Queen’s Hall. The oak-panelled room once formed part of the O2 complex, being the medium-sized of three rooms, sometimes referred to as ‘O2.2’. The main hall of the O2 had a capacity of 1,450 and the smallest room – later called The Scholar Bar – held around 150. The only other venue having an auditorium approaching a thousand people was De Montfort Hall. Summer Sundae was an annual festival held both inside the hall and also in its grounds outside. This attracted music fans from parts of the UK and even from abroad.
In a large room above Walkabout bar, the venue Sub91 operated between its opening night in August 2010, when the show was headlined by The Damned, through to its closure in December 2011. A short-lived venue, it nevertheless saw many notable bands take to its stage including some of our most successful local bands.
Thousands of Gigs
I began my career as a music journalist in the early noughties. I went to many gigs probably several hundred and am still attending them today, long after my official retirement. I still have hundreds of reporter’s notebooks filled with my scribble as I stood in front of stages listening to bands and singers. Here is a small selection of gigs based on a randomly selected sample of reviews from my notebooks. Writing this has brought back many happy memories. I still have all the notebooks I completed whenever I attended a gig. Without these notes, hundreds of gigs would have been forgotten. The one gig that stands out in my mind was when a very big band from the USA played at The Shed.
A Band From Los Angeles
Originating from Los Angeles, this band was called Boy Hits Car. This band was massive in the late nineties and early noughties. They played at The Shed on 3rd December 2007. For me, that was an unforgettable experience. Visiting Leicester, as part of the band’s UK tour of small venues, BHC visited 18 towns and played a gig every day. The band could have filled some of the country’s largest arenas but instead, they chose to play small venues, in order to get back to the roots of what rock is all about for the majority of bands. Travelling from gig to gig in a massive two-story tour bus, the lads worked incredibly hard but, by all accounts, received a rapturous response from their adoring fans, wherever they played. BHC has toured with System of a Down, Incubus, Papa Roach, and Flyleaf, to name a few. Not only did they have a repertoire of extraordinarily powerful and poetic songs, but they had a massive stage presence, which made a live encounter with BHC, an exciting experience, never to be forgotten. Formed in 1993, the band played at the Reading Festival in 2001. They released their first album in 1998 and their seminal album Boy Hits Car in the same year. I still find it difficult to believe that this actually happened. For me, it was like being in the same room as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.
From my reporter’s notebooks
Possibly 25/8/06, Battle of the Acoustics at The Shed. Jake Manning, performing for a couple of years he was a singer and songwriter who was noted for his guitar (12 strings). I noted – Rufus Wainwright fan. Quiet, sensitive songs, soft poetic lyrics, and careful, intricate fingering. Lilting ballads. Enthusiastic applause from the enthralled audience.
Insert photo from 2007
In 2007, I was at the venue on 6th July and wrote in my notebook, ‘On stage a band called Just Norris. A rockified blend of rap and ska Another band The Return featured a strong performance from the front man Joel to produce infectious beats which had the audience moshing and skanking. A stirring performance of the art of pop punk.’ Another band I saw at The Shed, in 2007, was called Taste The Chase. The band enjoyed a strong following and always put on a good performance. The musicians included those who played the trombone and the saxophone. The band’s very strong performance had pleasing rhythms and quickly got the audience dancing. It was all about a young band entertaining its fans. For The Record played at the venue in November and I was there to write a review. This was one of my favourite bands at the time. I noted that nearly all the band members sang, including the drummer who was called Poz. The band’s songs had strong tempos and thrusting beats and plenty of soaring guitar riffs. One of their songs was about ‘High School Royalty.’
Another young band I saw a lot of around this time was called ‘Naked Gravy.’ This Leicester band had four musicians and played songs with Ska-like rhythms. They amplified their set with a smoke machine and disco lighting. Also on that line-up was Silent Devices who I thought had rehearsed well and worked hard on the songs. The band I had gone to see was Apollos who had come to Leicester from out of town. In February 2008, I saw The Heroes at The Shed. The lead singer was Alex Totman, backed by Alex Van Roose who later formed his own band Midnight Wire. The band recorded many of its songs and uploaded the recordings to Myspace. This was a very popular band that always attracted a big crowd of fans.
What gigs at The Shed stand out in my mind? Many but here I select the few that were iconic. The Heroes performed their last ever gig on 15th July 2015. It was a very memorable music event as I recorded in my article about it for Music in Leicester. For those readers who still remember this band, I wrote a profile of them: The Heroes.
The other shows that stuck in my mind were the finals of the Original Bands Showcase (OBS) during the time these were held at The Shed. As I recall the series of showcase events went on for a long time but the grand final night was always a big one and attracted sell-out audiences. OBS nights were generally better attended than most other gigs but on the night of the grand final (when the winning band was announced) the room was always packed to capacity. Many other gig series were held at The Shed, including one called Empire Band of the Land and these often saw very large audiences. Other sell-out gigs occurred when highly popular touring bands headlined at The Shed. Sonic Boom Six was one of them. Other local bands also drew large audiences. In 2010, for example, there were well-attended shows featuring The Boobytraps and Superevolver. In that year there was a festival called Fringe Thursday which saw pretty much all of the city’s music venues putting on gigs.
Photos from the Past
Over the years, many others and I have taken countless thousands of photographs of bands playing at the venue. A selection of photos has been established online and can be viewed online.
I’m sorry that this final article has not been more comprehensive; I had to write it between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, which was not a good time to be bashing away at a computer keyboard. Let’s hope that someone will add to the story of The Shed when we come to its fortieth-anniversary celebration.
Related articles by Trevor Locke:
History of Music in Leicester Project.
From 2017, Going To Gigs.
The Golden Age of Indie.
Bands in the Year 2008.
Local Music Does It Matter?
The Shed reborn.
Trevor Locke, 2024.