The Hope & Anchor – London

The Hope & Anchor in North London, a statuesque Victorian boozer, must surely be Britain’s most famous rock music pub. Situated at 207 Islington Upper Street, just a two minute walk from Highbury and Islington tube station on the Victoria line, the pub ranks as one of the first in London to run regular rock gigs. .

Chas De Collis: It was back in the early Seventies that people first started to talk about `Pub Rock’. Of course, even at that time numerous pubs were featuring rock groups, but very few were emerging with any apparent aspirations towards greater success. The Tally Ho in Kentish Town was probably the first pub in London to specifically cater to a rock audience. Bands like Bees Make Honey and Brinsley Schwarz (with Nick Lowe) played regular gigs there, paving the way for Ducks Deluxe, Kilburn and The Highroads (fronted by Ian Dury), Ace and Chilli Willi, among others.

In the early years, jazz could be heard bubbling up through adjacent Islington drain pipes. Colds have been caught there by many, from the late Phil Seaman to Jo-Ann Kelly. but around the mid-seventies the Hope started to feature rock bands on Fridays and Saturdays. When the Tally Ho changed landlords and discontinued rock in favour of Irish show bands the Hope quickly took over as North London’s main pub rock attraction.

The rock policy was pulled into shape by Fred Grainger and Dave Robinson, who ran the pub on a shoestring not to mention a “devil-may-care” attitude.

As the years passed, Fred eventually quit the Hope to open a rock club in Brighton while Dave joined Jake Riviera in running Stiff Records. Albion Management and Agency took over the tenancy of the Hope in January of ’76 under the auspices of bearded, genial landlord John Eichler. Since that time John has organised various benefits in order to keep the pub open in the light of numerous threats of closure grew from one of these ideas, with name bands returning to the pub and performing for only expenses. Ian Grant of Albion narrowed down a long list to a final 22 bands – all of which had played at the pub at one time or another.

Then an “ideas meeting” was called.

It would surely have been crazy with such an amazing collection of bands not to arrange that the recording of the Festival be issued on a double album, and what an album! 17 Hope & Anchor bands live.

The Hope & Anchor was in fact one of three pubs by Albion – the other two were the Nashville and Red Cow which explains why bands like The Stranglers were regulars at all three.

That was back then in 1977 and for a time there it was a thriving combination of Punk, new wave, pub rock and R & B and part of the established rock circuit.

Without a doubt, the Hope and Anchor played its part in giving Punk bands a venue to play and the list included … the Damned, Joy Division, U2, Ian Dury, the Stranglers……..Crass, 999, the Maniacs, Penetration, London, Wire, Chelsea, The Police and plenty more. Its jukebox also continued to attract punters.

Simone Stenfors: One of the other places I used to hang out was the Hope and Anchor where they had a jukebox of punk records like New Rose and Anarchy and the Flamin’ Groovies. I was there one evening with my girlfriend and there was a poster that said The Damned were playing soon. At the end of the evening Rat Scabies happened to come in with Captain Sensible and he invited us to go downstairs because they were having a jam.

The upstairs rooms also came in handy for getaways from punk violence.

Simone Stenfors: Chelsea were playing at the Hope and Anchor when all these Teds invaded the place and started ripping the posters off the walls and smashing the place up. I was upstairs in the flat with I think Erica Echenberg and Soo Catwoman. Someone said phone up the News Of The World and tell them all the Teds are coming to the pub and mention for a joke that Toilet, a new all girl band with me on Bass, are playing. It then got into one of the music papers. Meanwhile we were looking out of the window and they were all chasing Gene October up the road. 

The Hope also featured the soon to be legendary Joy Division, though the occasion was less auspicious, featuring again sparse attendance for their London debut and their tragic frontman Ian Curtis having an epileptic fit in the car as they returned home.

As a first London gig, the Hope and Anchor was a disappointment. Expecting the glamour of the capital city, Joy Division hadn’t realised they would be playing in a pub cellar and that all the equipment would have to be lowered in through a trap-door. The small audience was not enough to spark the exhilaration needed to spur the band on. Deborah Curtis – Touching From A Distance

U2 are misnamed as “The U2’s” in promotional material. A significant number of media and record company people are in attendance along with only nine paying customers, but when Edge breaks a string, the band leaves the stage and does not return. www.u2setlists.com/earlydays_u23.shtml

As ska hit the scene, Camden Town’s nutty Boys Madness give us One Step Beyond at the Hope and Anchor.

And the Specials…

The mid eighties however was a struggle for the Hope as it became a squat venue in the then burgeoning anarchist scene and dismal years of Thatcher and more militant revolt sometimes powered by candlelight as the electricity was cut.

Towards the end of 1985 a number of squatted venues were opened in London, which enhanced the gig scene to no end. The Hope and Anchor in North London lasted  from September till end of November, an d had cafe, theater, and gigs in the evenings, including CONFLICT, DISORDER, and ANTISECT). It used to be a well-known rock venue until closed down and so was a  ideal place. It was even featured on a TV programme about ‘young people and homelessness’ Maximum R&R #37

Dabble  I have vague memories of a gig when it was squatted. I think it was around 1985. The gig I went to was Conflict.  The pub was absolutely rammed, you couldn’t fit another person in the place if you tried. must’ve been about 400 squeezed into such a small venue. Colin Jerwood (Conflict vocalist) was standing on a table in the bar area, with baseball bat in hand, trying to calm the fighting punks down, as he did not want the cops entering the building – he got his wish. The gig was around the time of the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham, as Colin Jerwood, all through the Conflict set, kept making comments about the death PC Blakelock.

As for the pub itself, as a squat. Well, it just looked like a boarded up pub from the outside. Inside, there were bare live electrical wires running across the bar. The rooms upstairs only had mattresses in them and, if I remember, no lighting (I stayed in the pub all night after the gig, but I’m sure I was probably very pissed at the time). In the basement gig area, well, it probably looked no different from when the pub was trading and putting on legit gigs. It was very hard to tell, cos the place was so packed, and people were on top of each other on the stairs leading down to the basement. Talkpunk, March 2009

In some perverse logic in contrast to the above Islington began to become gentrified during the late Eighties the Hope became of all things a wine bar. But all was not lost

However after a couple of years awaiting licences and good will Bugbear Bookings took the venue back into the frontline of the North London gig circuit in 1996 and has continued to host nights to this day, having previously showcased the likes of The Cooper Temple Clause, Hope of the States, The FutureHeads and Ash. Remote goat.co.uk

It also continues to have defining moment nights as manager Armstrong recalls about the night The Libertines played there.

I was assistant manager at the time and told my boss we needed more security but he was adamant it wasn’t going to be busy. I was waiting for it to go horribly wrong but it turned out alright, only the busiest we’ve ever been. People were queuing around the block and even trying to get in the dray hatch. This was even before Pete Doherty had turned up. He ambled in later on when everyone was getting to the point of massive irritation. CNJ.co.uk/review

The Hope is still going and long may that be so. The best description of a night there is one that’s universal to any gig or musical event.

Andy S: A damned good Hope & Anchor gig happens down in the basement, just you and the rats  it’s a regular rat trap where it gets hot and sweaty and it’s quite dark.  A claustrophobic’s nightmare with 300 punters sweating on you and grabbing your family tree and spilling their piss all over you but it ain’t quite rape because Wilko Johnson’s shoving his Telecaster in your face, the king of pub rock when pubs were king and the sweat rolls down the walls to the blistering feedback guitars. When it’s over you climb up the steep narrow stairs back to the pub and sink a pint of cold black Irish piss. You lose a pint, you gain a pint right back. It’s all about the body fluids, matey. www.yelp.co.uk/biz/hope-and-anchor-london-3

So we had the Roxy live Album and we had the Vortex live album; now came the Live At The Hope Anchor – Front Row Festival. Does it hold up against those? The answer is yes and no, but then again it didn’t have to. There’s no shots of the audience or such like because it’s the the venue who’s the star here.

For the gig, the band had rehearsed every song they’d ever done and wrote a song specially for the occasion Tits. Though only Straighten Out & Hanging Around were selected for the album, the whole gig came out on CD some years later. It revealed the band in particularly fine and fun form as songs were played on an almost request basis by the audience so earlier obscurer tracks such as Mean To Me and Choosey Suzie were played.

The album was released on March 3rd 1978 by WEA as a double album at a cheap price of £4.49. It got a lot of publicity but only managed to make it to #28 in the charts.

Part of that publicity was organised by publicist Alan Edwards which involved getting all the bands mothers together and which made all the music papers!

ROCK AND ROLL MOTHERS DAY! Why didn’t anyone think of it before? The stars unveil their private lives … Great angle! And pictured here are just some of the musicians and their mothers who attended a party last Friday to celebrate the release of the “Hope And Anchor Live “album and say cheese for the nice photographer.

Front row (L-R): John Potter (Wilko Johnson band) and Mrs Potter, Keith Owen (Suburban Studs) and Mrs Owen, Steve Poole (Suburban Studs) and Mrs Poole, Jean Jacques Burnel (Stranglers) and Mrs Burnel Jet Black (Stranglers) and Mrs Black. Back row (L-R): Dave Caroll (Steve Gibbons Band) and Mrs Caroll, Trevor Burton (Steve Gibbons Band) and Mrs Burton, Paul Morton (Suburban Studs) and Mrs Morton, Steve Gibbons and Mrs Gibbons, Alan Mair (Only Ones) and Mrs Mair.

Publicist Alan Edwards denies that he intends to get Buzzcocks rolling boiled eggs down a hill at Easter and Hugh Cornwall taking a leek for St David’s Day…NME 11.3.78

As to the album? It’s a fair representation of the music scene in London in Pubs at around the end of 1977/78 – from the obvious punkier new wave acts such as the Stranglers, 999, Suburban Studs and X Ray Spex to the more pub rock R&R of Wilko and the Pirates to the power pop of the Pleasers and and the new reggae of Steel Pulse. Near enough all of the bands who played, had outgrown the Hope and were now playing bigger venues and had record deals, but for the festival they were giving something back by returning to their roots.

All in all a good album with some great tracks and a fine testament to the Hope and Anchor.