Newcastle City Hall - Threatened Closure

Opened to the public in 1927, Newcastle City Hall is an iconic building which has hosted many great concerts by some of the finest recording artists in the world. To me personally it played a huge part in the development of my love of music. Graduating from listening to music on the radio, through taping episodes of Top of The Pops directly from the TV, to buying my very first vinyl records, the next logical step was to go to see live acts performing. Initially this was done at small 'dancehall' venues but eventually I began attending larger concerts and that all began at Newcastle City Hall.

It would be impossible for me to even begin to list all of the artists I have seen there over the years but suffice to say that the place holds a very special place in my heart. It should also be mentioned that there have been a number of live albums recorded in that venue, most notably, 'Pictures at an Exhibition' by Emerson, Lake & Palmer (March 1971), 'No Sleep 'til Hammersmith' by Motorhead and 'Slade on Stage' by Slade both in 1981. Of course it was also the scene of the regular Lindisfarne Christmas concerts and was a venue that they themselves played 132 times. In July this year, a plaque was unveiled on the wall of this historic building, commemorating the late Lindisfarne leader Alan Hull.

Now I hear that as part of the local council budget cuts, Newcastle City Council are considering closing the venue and selling the building off for redevelopment.

To close this venue would be a travesty and I have just signed an online petition to try to prevent this from happening. If you feel like I do, regardless of where you live, please get online and do likewise.

Here is a link to the petition:
http://www.change.org/petitions/newcastle-city-council-save-newcastle-city-hall

Thanks for taking the time to read this and please support this worthy cause.