The Marquee
The Marquee 1
The Marquee first opened on 4 January 1958 at 165 Oxford Street in London. It began life as a coffee bar/jazz club in rooms below the Academy Cinema. It was here that the Rolling Stones performed their first gig. They opened for Long John Baldry on 12 July 1962, billed then as Brian Jones, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. Fighting broke out at the end of the night, blamed on a gang of Mods. Soon after, the owner decided to add a small screen and turned it into a cinema. In 1964 the club moved to 90 Wardour Street, taking most of the fixtures with it. 165 Oxford Street is now a bank.
Marquee II
In 1964 Marquee opened at 90 Wardour Street, Soho. For almost thirty years the Marquee became London's major rock venue with such acts as The Who, Yardbirds, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Yes, David Bowie, Jethro Tull, Elton John, Genesis, The Clash, Ultravox, The Pretenders, The Cure, The Damned, Generation X, Siouxie and the Banshees and the Sex Pistols all making a name for themselves in their early days. David Bowie would appear on Sundays and be on stage for three hours with his Sunday Showboat, where he wore make-up for the first time in front of just twenty people and did some miming too. Jimi Hendrix only appeared once at the Marquee in 1967, when a queue ran from Wardour Street to Shaftesbury Avenue and all the way to Cambridge Circus. The Sex Pistols were the support act for Eddie and the Hot Rods on 12 February 1976, when they trashed the Hot Rods' equipment and terrorised members of the audience. The club fell into decline through the eighties, although American bands such as ZZ Top and Metallica were still keen to pay homage to this legendary club. The Marquee moved to Charing Cross Road in 1988, and the Wardour Street club is now the 'Mezzo Bar' and the Marquee is now located at Leicester Square.
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