1980-06-04

Beach Club, Oozits, Manchester, England

Set List of Show:

Additional Music

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

Show Details:

In April 1980, looking to launch a new club night in Manchester, a group set up “The Beach Club” in Oozits bar, on Newgate Street. The bar continued to operate under the name Oozits, but “The Beach Club” was set up as a performance night in the venue once a week. The performance venue was up on the top floor of the building. New Order played their first ever show at the club after the death of Ian Curtis. Memberships were offered which reduced the price of admission each week. The Beach Club nights didn’t last long, and by early 1981 was just memories.

Liz Naylor who published City Fun Fanzine remembers “I remember we tried to book Blurt and the agent said if you are having Blurt will you have this other band that we’ve got. I said ‘alright, we’ll have them as support’. So we get there and there’s this huge artic – you couldn’t even get it in the same street. The band had endless equipment. Blurt saw this and left in the end. It was a complete disaster…so U2 ended up playing there, but I left, I didn’t watch them.”

Ads for the night list Blurt, The Worms, and Tom and Jerry Cartoons. (The venue had the capacity to show films, and would often show these as the bands performed.) It is not known if The Worms performed.

Those in attendance say there was only a small crowd for the show. A note on the door as people entered mentioned there was a conflict between bands over who would headline the show, and that U2 would be headlining as Blurt had left and would not be playing.

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