Heaven-ly music venue

Virgin Group took the venue on in 1982, Richard Branson quickly up to speed with the value of the pink pound, and it became a Mecca for dance music at the end of the decade, and thereafter. In a fit of consolidation, Virgin sold the site on to a consortium in 2003, and Mama Group snapped it up five years later, subjecting it to a telling Archie McIntosh redesign. So today, Heaven has a real rock ‘n’ roll edge alongside the club nights. There’s a high stage, and great sightlines, the balcony has gone open plan, the PA and the lighting have been upgraded, and former Astoria/Forum/Dingwalls man Mark Ellicott has come in to run the place.

 “It’s still very much the most famous gay club in the country, but it’s such a good venue to see a band too, and it’s been incredibly well received by punters and promoters,” McIntosh says. “So it’s about getting the balance right.

“We redeveloped the balcony to get capacity for gigs up to the magic 1,000. It takes the pinch off downstairs, it’s a great place to watch the show, and it adds a fantastic bar for club nights. We’ve put in Digidesign desks and a high end turbo monitor system to lift the house production profile, which has been my philosophy for a lot of years now. Name acts can come along, plug in and play, confident in Heaven’s capacity to deliver.”

Head of sound Adam Bourns reconfigured the Funktion One system he inherited, turning its attentions from the dance floor to live music, and together with his strategic baffles below the arched ceiling, it makes all the right noises.

“There is a kudos I suspect in being associated with the venue, not necessarily for wholesome reasons, but for sleazy rock ‘n’ roll reasons.”

Mark Ellicott, Heaven

“The acoustics here are fantastic,” Ellicott says, ahead of the Glasvegas set. “I don’t know to what extent that’s because we are in this railway arch, underground, but it’s crystal clear, like listening to a record on a top quality hi fi system. It all just comes together.”

Since 2008, a heady mix of bands typically at home in much bigger spaces have played Heaven, Interpol, MGMT, Killing Joke, Broken Social Scene, The Cribs and Franz Ferdinand to name just a few. Sometimes it’s a warm up, sometimes it’s an album preview show, but it’s always a sought after night for the fans.

“We’ve carved ourselves a little bit of a niche,” Ellicott says. “I don’t think we’ll ever be a traditional seven nights a week rock ‘n’ roll room. We seem to be that leftfield, cool, slightly decadent place that some bands like to play.”

Viva Glasvegas

In 2008 they were dubbed ‘The most important Scottish band of all time’ by Creation-ist Alan McGee, but others were turned on to Glasvegas by their glorious cover of Suspicious Minds with Florence Welch at the 2009 NME Awards. On the back of support tours with Bono and co, Oasis and Kings Of Leon, they’ve managed to mix that riotous edge with studied U2isms, some of which can seem a bit large for confined spaces, but there’s enough of the Glasgow street in tow too, to make it work in Heaven.

Bathed in white light, singer/songwriter James Allan dominates the stage with his anthemic voice and rock ‘n’ roll postures. From some angles, he looks so like Joe Strummer a cliché would pinch itself, but lyrically the concerns are more personal than the national/international politics that inspired the Clash man.

“I’m not sure I ever was a social commentator, more a social daydreamer,”

James Allan, Glasvegas

Conceived and written at a Santa Monica beach house, and produced by Flood, the second Glasvegas album, Euphoric Heartbreak was released in early April. It’s pointedly stadium sized, but acutely confessional at the same time. Change, which closes the record, is a repentant dialogue between mother and son, the former played by none other than Mrs Allan.

“Sometimes I’m not sure the personal stuff is what I want to write,” the singer admits. “But I can’t help it, it just seems to happen.”

There were three new songs in among crowd pleasers from the Mercury Prize nominated debut album, and while clutches of fans face each other to bellow along with Geraldine, and Flowers And Football Tops, they are laudably arms aloft for The World Is Yours, Shine Like Stars and Euphoria, Take My Hand too. As you’d hope, Glasvegas rip up the template to deliver the songs harder and faster live, so nobody new to the space can have left without recognising how good it is to see a band like that close up. Whatever their other allegiances, Metropolis, Live Nation, SJM and ATP all put gigs into Heaven, which is a tribute to Mama’s efforts.

“It was quite difficult to get the place noticed by promoters to start with, I’m sure they get approached by dozens of venues every week,” Ellicott says. “But I think we had a greater claim than most by virtue of the fact that the infrastructure was already here, and the talent is here as well. The technicians are very good, and our security team is very good too. They are not allowed to think independently of the venue management, and they understand that the more work we get, the more work they get. Saying that, I do believe it isn’t all about the money. We’re here because we love the music.”

 

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Contact the editor: olivia.vanstraten@oceanmedia.co.uk