RockScotland

Who remembers the Heathery in Wishaw?

What was the best gig you saw there?

rockscotland wrote:Who remembers the Heathery Bar, Wishaw?

The Heathery in Wishaw was one of the Glasgow area's main rock venues back in the early 80's.

I saw loads of great (and not so great) bands there over the years - Marillion, Diamond Head, Phil Lynott, Magnum, Girlschool to name but a few.

Unfortunately, the owners knew nothing whatsoever about live music and relied on the advice of a few locals as to what bands to book - needless to say the venue just faded away.

Shame - it's been turned into flats now!

goblin

goblin wrote:Marillion, Diamond Head, Phil Lynott, Magnum, Girlschool

I saw Diamond Head in the Heathery as well - I remember that they were heckled continuosly by one of the local Wishy neds and Sean Harris lost his rag! Happy days!

I also saw Magnum and I remember that they played on a Saturday and didn't have a gig on the Sunday, so they asked if they could play again the following night and keep the door money. Unfortunately only a handful of people showed up on the Sunday - still played a great gig though.

angus

What I remember most about the Heathery was the abysmal standard of the DJ's.

As far as I'm aware, the original DJ, Bobby Bennett, was sacked and replaced by a pretend biker called "Peebles" who always droned on about being a "Blue Angel".

Peebles was notorious for having only a handful of records which he played in exactly the same order every single week. He knew nothing about any of the newer bands at the time and never had any up to date records.

Still, back then it was the only rock venue in Lanarkshire and was better than nothing!

rocker

I remember seeing Phil Lynott in the old Heathery with Grand Slam!

Phil being Phil was completely out of it by the soundcheck after drinking all day with all the old guys downstairs in the bar and the crew found him unconscious on the floor. They dragged him off to the hotel and he re-appeared non the worse for the gig.

Gig itself was notable for being far too loud - to the extent of the PA sounding as if it was going through a fuzzbox. People near tthe front had bits of paper stuck in their ears.

jas

Tough TOUGH gig to play. If it went well on the night it could be great but more often than not it started off bad and fell away rapidly.

If you could handle the Heathery you could handle anywhere to be honest.

I played it with three different bands over about a 10 year period and some of the heckling was hysterical (though it wasn't so funny at the time). We used to borrow a pal's work's van to get there and one of the wags up in "The Coarner" where they sold all the illicit stuff waited for a pause in the music and yelled out "C'mon The Alpine Roofing Company"...

I seen the Lloyd Langton Group hardly anyone there but he was awesome.

I went to the Heathery almost every Saturday night in it's heyday!

It's another venue that seems to be remembered with the rose-tinted hindsight that's reserved for the Apollo and places like that.

Granted, in it's day there was nowhere else to go to hear rock bands and it was running well before any of the Glasgow gigs like the Venue etc but it was a complete dive and the owners just let a succession of amatuer DJ's make the descisions and it eventually just faded away before closing for good.

There were always two different sections of the crowd in the Heathery - those who were interested in the bands and who sat at the front near the dance floor and all the neds who sat in the slightly elevated area at the back and loved it because they could freely smoke dope (and freely buy it from the staff) without any harrasment.

Amusingly, Dougie White referenced the Heathery at the recent La Paz gig in Zico's and stated that, "tonight it's not Zico's but the Heathery bar". Unfortunately, there were only a few (I counted 8) people there from the Heathery days with the majority (who hadn't even heard of or seen La Paz) only there to hear the Deep Purple and Rainbow covers.

Still, the Heathery had it's day and nothing in the Lanarkshire area has come close to having a regular "Rock Night" with a regular crowd since! Shame!

It's time all those who like to continually drone on about going to the Heathery actually went out and supported their local rock scene.

With gigs coming up from La Paz and Chasar in Zico's maybe, just maybe, if the locals actually make an effort to attend and stop moaning about the lack of rock gigs, the Wishaw rock scene can thrive again!

TP xxx

thistle_princess wrote:Still, the Heathery had it's day and nothing in the Lanarkshire area has come close to having a regular "Rock Night" with a regular crowd since! Shame!

It's time all those who like to continually drone on about going to the Heathery actually went out and supported their local rock scene.

Yip, great gig in it's day. Hostile crowd though if they didn't know any of the bands material.

Have to agree with Thistle Princess and say that all those who continually moan about the lack of good gigs actually left the house and gave their support to some bands.

braz

Have fond memories of the Heathery although I agree it was a bit of a dive. We used to come up from Ayr to see bands - some excellent like Grand Slam some crap. Actually went one night and there was a band on called The Hemorrhoids - turned out to be top notch !!
It's a sad sight to drive past it now though.