Look carefully below at the programme of gigs coming up at UEA LCR and there’s a non-music event on 28th October. It’s part of the Norwich Book Festival, and I’m chairing a session in which music journalist and author Paul Sexton talks about his new book Rock Goes to College: The Campus Scene that Rocked a Generation. The event also includes one of the LCR’s bookers, Gavin Hudson.
The LCR (=Lower Common Room) is one of the students’ union venues in universities up and down her country that formed the college circuit for national tours by leading bands from the 1970s on. Unlike some of those venues, the LCR remains a very active live music venue, with gigs throughout the year. (Today the SU also has two other live music venues in Norwich city centre, so it hasn’t just survived but thrived.)
UEA opened as a university in 1963, and from the beginning put on live bands for the new student (and city) audience. But it wasn’t until a decade later that the LCR was built and opened. There’s a wonderful book available listing all UEA gigs across the decades, with stories, posters, old photos.
I first went to gigs at the LCR myself as a teenager in late 1975 / early 1976, not long after we moved to Norwich.
One of the great things Norwich Book Festival aims to do is to put some of its events on in unusual or out-of-the-way venues, including ones that are specific to the particular book or author. So, for instance, Mary Portas, aka ‘Mary, Queen of Shops’, is talking about her new book I Shop, Therefore I Am in Jarrold’s department store. To be actually in the LCR talking about a book like Paul’s Rock Goes to College is another fine example of thoughtful and adventurous programming.
Ever been to a gig at the LCR? Do come.
