London - Music Experience
 

Hi,

My husband and I are going to London for 4 days in mid September. We are both in our early 30's and we love music. We wanted to know if anyone had any suggestions on venues where we can hear bands, music walks (houses and studios), etc...

We are already going to see Muse at Wembley Sept 10th, which we are excited for. I want to go to abbey road, etc.... but any other ideas would be good :) Thank you!

When I was in London in 2007 I was Wicked it was wonderful. I had great seats, forth row from the stage. They say don't sit in the front row because you will always be looking up.

Hi mary513

London is FULL of fantastic gig venues. Wembley Stadium tends to get the monster outdoor shows, then the next level down is the O2 (Tube stop: North Greenwich on the Jubilee Line), an indoor arena that holds around 22,000 people (making it, I believe, the largest in Europe at the moment). The O2 always has something going on; you tend to get the global touring acts like Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Pink, Coldplay, Metallica, Keane etc etc etc... check out theo2.co.uk for listings, although you'll pay full whack for tickets from here (more on tickets later on).

Next down is the mid size venues, the kings of which are probably the Brixton Academy (Tube: Brixton), the Roundhouse in Camden (Tube: Chalk Farm or Camden Town) and (to a lesser extent as it goes dark from time to time, and also hosts a lot of classical concerts as well as rock and pop) the Royal Albert Hall (Tube: South Kensington).

Next down are the smaller venues, the places that hold anywhere between 100 and a couple of thousand people. There are dozens of venues like this all across London, although KOKO in Camden (Tube: Mornington Crescent) stands out - the interior is stunning.

To be honest, there's so much that you'll barely scratch the surface in four days; however, the upside is there's bound to be something on somewhere that'll rock your boat. My advice would be to check out the ticketing websites - I use (I live in London and go to hundreds of gigs every year) ticketmaster, seetickets, seatwave, viagogo, ticketweb, ticketline, aloud.com and gigwise. You tend to shop by band, rather than by venue, although if there's a particular venue that you want to visit it should have a website where you can view upcoming shows.

In terms of other music 'stuff' I'm a bit scratchier I'm afraid... a lot of the traditional record stores have closed down and I buy all my music online now anyway. If you're into insanely expensive musical instruments, the music section of Harrod's (Tube: Knightsbridge) is worth a look for an hour or so, although they don't let you play any of the instruments! There's also a fantastic music shop on Wardour Street, Soho (Tube: Piccadilly Circus) called Chappell of Bond Street (ignore the misleading name, they moved location) that sells pianos, keyboards, guitars, percussion instruments, sheet music, etc etc.

With the studios, I think Abbey Road do tours but most of the other studios aren't open to the public so you may not have much luck there.

Buy a copy of Time Out

If your local airport doesn't sell it so you can read it before you get here:

1. Move somewhere less parochial, but in the meantime:
2. Buy one at the London airport you arrive at, then read it in the tube/train going into town

Here you go - a link for Time Out. http://www.timeout.com/london/music/

Have fun!

Also have a mooch around the UK itunes. I'm rediscovering Blur at the moment having watched a documentary that has set me off!.. Was always a Blur girl rather than Oasis, and if I'm really honest fancy Damon Albarn. Don't think they really made it in the US other than a couple of songs We have so many superb bands that dont.

For instruments you want Denmark St - just off Charing Cross Road.

I could bankrupt myself in an afternoon there.

While you're there have a look at the 12 bar club. Very small, very picky, usually very good(down the side of |Andy's Guitars).

The O2 supposedly has excellent acoustics (no acts of note were there when we went last year so we didn't go) -- that would be the place to go if a group/act you like is playing.

Ronnie Scott's (http://www.ronniescotts.co.uk/) is famous but I don't know what its rep is for Londoners.