The team behind Nottingham’s beloved Rescue Rooms, and hometown band Panchiko, have spoken to the NME about the recent 20th anniversary celebrations for the venue and the current plight of live music in the UK.
The 400-capacity Goldsmith Street venue opened on 22 February 2003 and has since served as a pivotal stepping stone in the rise of artists including Amy Winehouse, Stormzy, The Killers, The National, Dua Lipa, Calvin Harris, Charli XCX, The Libertines, Fontaines D.C. and Nottingham’s own Jake Bugg.
The week-long series of celebrations, which also included a Do Nothing DJ set and a performance by Nottingham’s Amber Run, culminated last week with a headline performance from Frank Turner and the one-off show from local cult indie band Panchiko.
Speaking to NME, Anton Lockwood, the Director of Live Music at the DHP Group, the company behind Rescue Rooms that also runs Rock City and the Bodega in Nottingham, was keen to outline the continuing importance of mid-sized music venues to the lifeblood of the UK music scene.
“When we do these anniversary things, the natural thing is to go, ‘Oh yeah, Dua Lipa played, or The Killers played and didn’t even sell out’. But to me, the really important thing is there are loads of artists that play to 400 people every night and that’s all they’ll ever do,” said Lockwood. “Some of my favourite artists are artists that don’t even sell that many tickets, but do have a career and entertain thousands of people.”
He continued: “Having great venues at that level isn’t just about finding the next superstar. It’s about having places where people do something that’s never going to be a Number One album, but is going to bring pleasure to a lot of people. It’s a really, really important part of the music ecosystem.”
The COVID-19 pandemic had a debilitating effect on the live music industry that continues to be felt, with Derby’s The Venue just the latest to be forced to announce its closure. Lockwood highlighted the tireless work of the Music Venue Trust, which recently proclaimed that grassroots gig spaces in the UK are in danger of “going over a cliff”, in supporting the network of venues during that period, and offered an update on the current lay of the land in 2023.
“People are coming out,” he said. “We’ve had a better start to the year than we imagined. I think we are seeing less shows and it’s harder for bands to tour – cheers Brexit and cheers Liz Truss. But even if the supply is lower, the demand is still there.”
Reflecting on the venue’s inception in 2003, Lockwood remembered having put on earlier shows with The Strokes and The White Stripes in Nottingham’s 200-capacity Bodega (then known as The Social), but noticed that there were no natural next step for bands to grow into in the city. Citing a gap in the market, the DHP team established Rescue Rooms as an all-around centre for live music, designed to house a range of styles and moods.
“When I came up with the name Rescue Rooms, I wanted it to feel like you’re not just going to a gig and drinking a can of warm beer and pissing off home,” Lockwood said. “I wanted there to be more going on. There might be a club night in the upstairs room, or there might be an acoustic act in the bar, or a hip-hop night, or it was somewhere to go if your show at Rock City next door had finished.”
One person who worked as a sound engineer in the early years of the Rescue Rooms is Andy Wright, and following an unimaginable sequence of events, he also found himself headlining the final night of the venue’s 20th birthday celebrations last month. Wright is the guitarist and keyboardist for Panchiko, a Nottingham band that had already been disbanded for two years when Rescue Rooms opened in 2003, having only played a small handful of shows, mostly to empty rooms.
After a copy of their 2000 EP ‘D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L’, of which only a few dozen were made, was found in a charity shop in 2016, a global internet detective hunt ensued to track down the original band members. The four-piece, astonished to find that their demos had become a major online cult hit, regrouped in 2020, and now find themselves in high demand.
“It was mental, actually. It was great,” Wright said about Panchiko’s performance at Rescue Rooms’ anniversary. “It’s still weird for us, because we’re not really used to having people come to watch us. We’re still in that 22-years-ago mindset. But it was totally rammed! We don’t deserve this, but we love it! It still frazzles our minds that we’re anywhere near this kind of situation.”
‘D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L’s title track now has over 11 million Spotify streams and a recent US tour sold out in under 20 minutes. Panchiko have also recently finished recording a new album, their official debut, titled ‘Failed at Math(s)’, and set for release on May 5.
“It’s lovely to see [Rescue Rooms] develop and maintain what it set out to do for such a long time,” Wright said about the venue. “It’s incredible, I worked there for six or seven years, maybe more, and saw lots of good stuff come through.”
Wright singled out Low and Yo La Tengo as some of his personal favourite memories of the Rescue Rooms’ early years, although it is one particular show in October 2005 that both Wright and Lockwood mentioned separately as being the single most memorable.
“I think for me it’s got to be when we persuaded Echo & The Bunnymen to come and play,” said Lockwood. “The ‘rescue’ in Rescue Rooms comes from their song ‘Rescue’, they’re my favourite band, and so to have them play that song in that venue was pretty special.”
Wright’s perspective was slightly different. “The guy out of Echo & The Bunnymen,” he reminisced. “He got so fucking smashed that I had to gaffer tape arrows all the way down from the dressing room to the stage so he could find his way there. I tried to talk to him but he was just swaying and he didn’t really understand what was going on. And then he got on stage and he was perfect!”
Whether as engineer at the decks or as a performer on stage, Wright understands that there is something special about Rescue Rooms that has been worth celebrating. “I think certain venues rise above and become some kind of special place,” he added. “Like King Tuts [Glasgow], there’s something about it, it’s just a good vibe. It’s a wonderful place and I hope it keeps on going for another 20, or 40, or 100 years.”
A threat to the talent pipeline continues in the UK, with grassroots music venues facing the “perfect storm” of Brexit, the cost of living crisis and last-minute gig-goer decisions – claiming that they’re set to “go off a cliff” without help and investment from government and larger arenas.
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