A Love Letter to Old Red and the cultural importance of venues

Old Red Bus Station. Source: Alex Wilson

This is a companion piece to an interview with Alex Wilson on the reasons why Old Red closed down and why we are losing grassroots venues. Read here. 

Dear Old Red, 

Eight long years ago, as a fresh faced student, I stepped into an unassuming building on Vicar Lane for the first time. As I walked in: a cubist art show to my left and the jarring breakbeat stirs of jungle music to my right. This was a world I didn’t know, and I loved it.

Fast forward eight years and you, The Old Red Bus Station, have closed your doors. A last mid-January hurrah saw you off into the cold winter night. But this letter isn’t for the doom and gloom of declining nightlife. This is a letter dedicated to the good times: to the memories, the nights and the people that echoed in the night air. 

A city thrives on the spaces available for art and music. It forms the personality of the city’s many cliques, an underlying thread that permeates through the subcultures. Places for the shared imagination, words, visuals and music. For Old Red, it didn’t matter if it was a drum and bass rave or a poetry reading, the long thin walls held us all the same.

Our cultural venues are integral parts of the shared identity of our communities. For me and many others Old Red was one piece in the jigsaw of the human experience. And for that, I thank you on behalf of all your beloved patrons. For the memories we formed, for the friendships made and the good times. 

I didn’t know my last time at Old Red was going to be my last, the memory of the night is a bittersweet moment. 

Long live our cultural venues.