HARRY PEARSON
THE BIG TEES
In an issue in which we feature local singers Paul Smith and Alistair Griffin,
Teesside’s best columnist Harry Pearson takes a musical trip back in time…
O
ne rainy Thursday afternoon in
the early 1970s a friend of mine
found himself buying a pint for
Jerry Lee Lewis in a pub on Stockton High
Street. The Killer, as the singer was known,
had a catalogue of craziness behind him that
included seven marriages (one to a teenage
cousin), drink, drugs, mindless vandalism
and an arrest for brandishing a revolver and
threatening to shoot Elvis Presley.
Luckily, the wild man of rock ‘n’ roll was
well behaved on this occasion, though he
was apparently none too impressed with salt
and vinegar crisps.
My friend had met the Great Balls of Fire
singer while he had a week’s residency at
Stockton’s celebrated Club Fiesta (which was
actually in Norton).
A place of glamorous legend, the Club
Fiesta had opened in 1965 and boasted
scantily clad waitresses known as the Fiesta
Fawns who were kind of like Bunny Girls,
only with antlers.
The Club Fiesta booked some of the
biggest acts on the circuit – everybody from
Stevie Wonder to Shirley Bassey, via Dusty
Springfield, Ella Fitzgerald and, erm, Bruce
Forsyth. My mum and dad went there on
their tenth wedding anniversary to see
Eurovision winner Sandie Shaw whilst eating
scampi and chips in a basket – a meal which,
in those dark days of spam fritters and
marrowfat peas, was considered the height of
sophistication.
The Club Fiesta was aimed more at a
middle-of-the-road audience. For Teessiders
who wanted something a little less square,
not to say far out, man, there was the Redcar
Jazz Club. Held once a week in the ballroom
of the Coatham Hotel (owned by then
Middlesbrough chairman Charles Amer),
this unlikely setting hosted some of the
biggest rock acts in history including Cream,
Fleetwood Mac, Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd.
Gravel-voiced Saltburn lad David
Coverdale was appearing at Redcar Jazz
58
The old Club Fiesta in Norton (now the Destiny Church), which once played
host to Great Balls of Fire singer Jerry Lee Lewis, first opened in 1965.
Club regularly and working in a nearby
clothes shop when he got the call to replace
Ian Gillan as the lead singer in Deep Purple.
Even gravelier-voiced Boro boy Paul
Rodgers’ band, Free, were regulars too.
The Club Fiesta had closed down by
the time I started going to gigs (when I
last looked the building was a Pentecostal
church) and Redcar Jazz Club had lost its
pull, surrendering power to the nearby
Coatham Bowl.
We went to the Bowl occasionally (for
some reason there was always tinsel hanging
from the ceiling above the stage), along
with Middlesbrough Town Hall Crypt. But
our main haunt was Middlesbrough Rock
Garden. A place of evil repute, housed in
what had once been the Pavilion Theatre,
the Rock Garden was so hot and sweaty that
condensation ran down the walls and beer
evaporated from the plastic glasses.
The tiny club had cemented itself as one
of the UK’s greatest punk venues when the
Sex Pistols played a secret gig there in 1976.
Generation X, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the
Damned and the Stranglers all appeared. A
friend was knocked unconscious during a
Penetration concert, while the Undertones
signed my T-shirt and wished me luck with
my A-Levels.
The Rock Garden would eventually morph
into The Arena, a Cool Britannia stalwart
that welcomed Oasis, The Libertines and the
Arctic Monkeys before it too bit the dust.
Last time I walked past it was a gym.
The Coatham Bowl was demolished in
2014, taking with it walls that had once
echoed to the sound of Iron Maiden, Ozzy
Osbourne, Saxon and Ultravox.
Music has changed a lot since I was a
teenager hanging out with the Rock Garden’s
acned hordes. In fact, things seem to have
gone in reverse.
These days when I hear my daughter
listening to some melodic tune from Sam
Smith, Ed Sheeran or their ilk, I find myself
tutting, thinking back and saying: “Call that
a song? The Ramones, now that was proper
music – a totally tuneless cacophony and you
couldn’t even hear the words.”