the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, Whitley Bay UK

Subject: the Vic, Whitley Bay UK
From: GUEST,rewster
Date: 06 Sep 14 - 11:45 AM

Anyone remember the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, in the middle of Whitley Bay, late 60s early 70s?
Some great folk - the Callies, Sarah Gray, Jackie & Bridie, Peggy Seeger, Johnny Handle, JSD Band, Finbar & Eddie Furey etc. Good times.

Subject: RE: the Vic, Whitley Bay UK
From: GUEST,rewster
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 02:09 PM

no-one?

Subject: RE: the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, Whitley Bay UK
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 04:48 PM

Was that the one run by Jack Routledge and Tony Gilman (I think that was his name)? If so out band, The Colliers, got a gig there around 1968.Or was that the Rex Hotel?

Subject: RE: the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, Whitley Bay UK
From: GUEST,rewster
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 09:01 PM

you are mixing it up with the Bay Hotel in Cullercoats with Jack and Tony. The Vic was in Whitley Bay. The Rex was run by Lindisfarne. In New York village the band was the Callies, later Jack the Lad.

Subject: RE: the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, Whitley Bay UK
From: Musket
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 03:45 AM

I once got thrown out of The Rex, although not on a folk night. I was staying there when working in the area and we had too much of a sniff of the barmaid's apron. Mind, I was only 26 ish at the time.

After that, we started staying at The Bay Hotel. Odd to see both mentioned (for different reasons) in the same post!

Subject: RE: the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, Whitley Bay UK
From: GUEST,rewster
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 10:24 AM

The Bay has gone now, Musket

Subject: RE: the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, Whitley Bay UK
From: JHW
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 05:02 PM

Some good nights at the Bay upstairs, might have been Sunday nights.
A good more traditional club somewhere at North Shields maybe a bit later?

Subject: RE: the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, Whitley Bay UK
From: GUEST,Dave H
Date: 01 May 15 - 05:38 PM

Greetings from Northern France.

My first introduction to folk was in 1965 or 66, in a pub on the corner where the road from the town arrived at the seafront. A couple of singers would entertain a small group of eager schoolboys/girls but it was never a 'club' as such. Graduated from there to the Bay in Cullercoats, probably the best folk club in history, especially in those days when the quality of the floor singers was such that guests just got the same as everybody else - max three songs either side of the interval.

I remember going to an all-day ceilidh there (the bar closed between 3 and 6 and the music just spilled out into the streets) then at closing time heading off to the town to do a 26-mile sponsored walk starting at midnight from St James' Park.

We also used to go to a Sunday night modern jazz club in a posh hotel in Whitley Bay, which might very well have been the Rex. If three of us went along, we would normally have made up at least half the audience.

Subject: RE: the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, Whitley Bay UK
From: GUEST,Frank Whitley Bay
Date: 23 Oct 18 - 02:04 PM

Yes I remember the folk club upstairs in the Vic, I remember hearing Fog on the Tyne being sang there by one or more of Lindisfarne before it was recorded on it's first public outing probably around 1970. I worked at the Spanish City at the time. I can't remember what night the folk club ran?

Subject: RE: the Victoria Hotel Folk Club, Whitley Bay UK
From: GUEST,George Frampton
Date: 30 Oct 18 - 07:52 AM

Apart from the live pub music at weekends, today there are only two 'folk' clubs that meet locally - both on Sunday nights: The Monkey at The Monkseaton Arms which is or was run by Dave Minikin. I go to The Dolphin in Tynemouth where there is a blend of some very good singers and 'enthusiasts'.

There are plenty of community choirs, but as far as I'm aware no open-mic sessions since The Berkeley sold its downstairs concern to the Coop.