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Amadeus


Lemonade

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I'm just curious and being a little nosey. Does anyone know the reason behind it closing down? I always just assumed that with new popular clubs such as Espionage, Exodus, Liquid, Priory, Escobar etc opening in the city centre, people just stopped trekking all the way to the beach and they lost all their custom. Though I've heard rumours and hearsay that they were closed down after a swoop found a huge number of underagers drinking in there, and yet more rumours and hearsay that a guy was seriously assualted by the bouncers and left partially disabled, and he was the son of one of the top men in the police. Does anyone know the truth?

Also, what are they doing with the building? It's been sitting empty for years, just crumbling. Who owns it? Is there still anything in it?

Man I had some great nights in there... :love:

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Think it was simply that the new clubs in town had killed most of its trade. I was not in often but lived nearby & in the last few months, the number of revellers coming down my road at closing time (& no other biz down there was open that late) dwindled to next to nothing. From the few times I was in tho, I'd agree that they could be a bit easy on the age-checks.

The owners were also refused planning permission to convert the old ABC cinema (IIRC) building into an in-town club & after that, seemed to lose interest in the place - it was a right run-down dump in the end. Last time I was in was @2 days before it closed & it was dismal but then, I never particularly liked it in the first place.

Since it closed, the building was used occasionally by some religious organisation who eventually applied to take-over the lease but pulled-out when they were refused a licence & have not been back. IIRC, about 18 months ago the services were finally fully disconnected & someone I know vaguely was involved in scrapping/recovery work on some of the equipment & that would have precluded any further use on safety grounds alone.

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I was in a few months before it closed and it was almost empty.

We used to go there for the student nights on Monday nights (Slam?) in 98/99 and it was really good, always packed, cheap drinks, decent music, lots of drunk student totty! Thursday nights were hugely popular as well, the 70s night, people used to come in from places Fraserburgh and Peterhead to go to it and you had to queue about an hour to get in. I remember back around that time, every night it was packed out the door and the queue would go right up past the bingo place and you had to stand and freeze for ages. On Fridays you were lucky if you even got in. They had 2 buses running to it from town which were always full, and that guy with the mullet drove them and just got abuse all night. Running a bus to it from Woolmanhill was a stroke of marketing genius.

Then it all just seemed to go down the pan at an alarming rate, went from being absolutely packed to being completely empty in the space of a year. By the end the only people that went in was bouley bashers and their ugly jailbait girlfriends, and they just payed shit music and it wasn't fun anymore. I guess they let the underagers in cos they needed the money!

Bring back Amadeus! :rockon:

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They had 2 buses running to it from town which were always full, and that guy with the mullet drove them and just got abuse all night. Running a bus to it from Woolmanhill was a stroke of marketing genius.

Now famous for the number 17 late night bus journeys...

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I'm just curious and being a little nosey. Does anyone know the reason behind it closing down? I always just assumed that with new popular clubs such as Espionage, Exodus, Liquid, Priory, Escobar etc opening in the city centre, people just stopped trekking all the way to the beach and they lost all their custom. Though I've heard rumours and hearsay that they were closed down after a swoop found a huge number of underagers drinking in there, and yet more rumours and hearsay that a guy was seriously assualted by the bouncers and left partially disabled, and he was the son of one of the top men in the police. Does anyone know the truth?

Also, what are they doing with the building? It's been sitting empty for years, just crumbling. Who owns it? Is there still anything in it?

Man I had some great nights in there... :love:

I know that the place wasn't doing well financially, but I also heard that First Leisure missed the boat on re-applying for their Liqueur License. This was probably the final nail in the coffin.

The building was leased to First Leisure by European Developments, who have been trying to offload the place for a good while now. European Developments are better known as Verase Ltd, who amongst other things own many fine establishments in Aberdeen including the Budz Bar, that we all know and love....uh-hem.

Last I heard was that one of the Directors of ill fated Chimes Construction, tried to buy it for some religious organisation that he headed. I think he was wanting to turn it into an evangelical'esk type place.

IMO theres not much they could do from a planning perspective on that building, which has clearly limited potential lessee's.

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I know that the place wasn't doing well financially, but I also heard that First Leisure missed the boat on re-applying for their Liqueur License. This was probably the final nail in the coffin.

The building was leased to First Leisure by European Developments, who have been trying to offload the place for a good while now. European Developments are better known as Verase Ltd, who amongst other things own many fine establishments in Aberdeen including the Budz Bar, that we all know and love....uh-hem.

Last I heard was that one of the Directors of ill fated Chimes Construction, tried to buy it for some religious organisation that he headed. I think he was wanting to turn it into an evangelical'esk type place.

IMO theres not much they could do from a planning perspective on that building, which has clearly limited potential lessee's.

The council have been trying to build up the "Fun" beach as a major tourist attraction for years, now they have all the cafes and restuarants, cinema, bowling, fun fair, all that stuff. That building is just a big ugly eyesore. They should do something with it. I bet it turns into a luxury hotel or something. Overlooking the sea would be a big selling point. Any hotel companies out there? Get your finger out!

Or they could make it a massive titty bar. With a really inappropriate name. Imagine the Aberdeen skyline being dominated by a big neon sign saying "The Titty Twister"!

I bet it turns into something really rubbish, like flats or an old folk's home.

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I'm sure Cloud will be presenting his detailed financial report shortly.

Sure, here goes.

Was First Leisure owned by the First Group? I know next to fuck all about the place, apart from it being a fantastic place in the dying days to get shitloads of free drink vouchers from fed up PR staff and being a great place to get in underage - I lost track of the amount of times that I ended up in there, simply because they never ID'ed anyone in the last year or so of it's existence.

To be fair, one thing Amadeus did have that was a fantastic idea was selling food - it's always surprised me that more places don't take advantage of that kind of thing.

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Sure, here goes.

Was First Leisure owned by the First Group? I know next to fuck all about the place, apart from it being a fantastic place in the dying days to get shitloads of free drink vouchers from fed up PR staff and being a great place to get in underage - I lost track of the amount of times that I ended up in there, simply because they never ID'ed anyone in the last year or so of it's existence.

To be fair, one thing Amadeus did have that was a fantastic idea was selling food - it's always surprised me that more places don't take advantage of that kind of thing.

Oh yeah, they had a built in sizzlers.... always handy when you were a little too sozzled, a dose of chips and beans to soak up some of the drink then back to sleazy chat up lines on the dancefloor!

Did anybody ever save up enough doubloons to get the free bottle of champagne? Bleurgh! It tasted like cat piss.

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Though I've heard rumours and hearsay that they were closed down after a swoop found a huge number of underagers drinking there

I won a Rear of the Year contest there and landed myself a free bottle of champagne and an invitation back to the hotel room of a Coronation Street cast member....

...aged 16 :up:

Good fun.

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Just be thankful it wasn't Curly...

That would be a story for the Sun front page.

"CORRIE STAR IN TEEN SEX AND BOOZE SHAME

Coronation Street star Kevin Kennedy, known to millions as Curly Watts, was today exposed as a drunken pervert, after allegedly plying an underage girl with alcohol in a nightclub before inviting her back to his hotel for a boozy romp. The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was heard wailing 'He only wanted me because of my nice arse, the b*****d!' as she was led away by counsellors.

Mr Kennedy was unavailable for comment.

See "The Sun Says", page 14."

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