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Kef closing: Memories and opinions


Guest Giles Walker

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seen plenty of amazing gigs there, but i never really liked the atmosphere of kef... still it will be sad to see one of aberdeens longest running venues go! i hope paul organises something to make it go out with a bang :D

if i do it will be with local acts, not enough time to put a big bill together, would have been nice though.

anyone think thats viable?

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seen plenty of amazing gigs there, but i never really liked the atmosphere of kef... still it will be sad to see one of aberdeens longest running venues go! i hope paul organises something to make it go out with a bang :D

i know, you either liked it or loathed it, that was the way it was.

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Any Capdown gig ever in Kef, they'll always be my fondest memories. Seen 'em a heap of times in other places, but the Kef shows were always something special. Atom Flask, who i remember doing an amazing show in there too. Also, the Lashed nights were always a great atmosphere.

Shame to see it go, although like a lot of folk, I aint been there in a long while.

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played some great fun gigs there back in the day, from the reckoning day gigs organised by ben, supporting nash (probably the best set i ever saw in there), supporting pala with HG and PoO to the gigs with risactonie, seven stone under, liber8 and everyone else. sad to see it go.

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Has anyone been recently? It has remained reasonably busy so i have heard but the music policy has remained firmly routed in the 90s and the guests they have been booking have been far from inspiring.

From what i can gather the nights have been left in the hands of the djs and Angela took a back seat not offering much in the way of help or assistance. This is fine for the seasoned dj/promoter, but apart from Tez the djs there have little or no experience promoting and booking guests. Quite a lot of the djs seem to treat their gigs as a hobby and not take it too seriously, which doesn't always bode well for the music selection.

I reckon it is a shame this venue is closing but hopefully it will inspire some sort of diy ethos in the remaining djs who want to put on nights to showcase new, underground music.

Totally disagree with you. While Kef has really struggled to woo large numbers of punters from some of the recent younger sexier contendors, its wrong to place this blame on those running the nights.

As well as Tez, Lunik deserves big credit for Ketchup - the first regular night in Aberdeen to be playing Breakz, Electro, and more recently Minimal Techno. Also the first (and only) night in Aberdeen to have a resident VJ providing live visuals, back to back 6 deck battle mixing etc etc . All of this Lunik has been doing for the last 2 years.

Guest have been hit and miss at Kef (as Tez knows) and shouldn't be regarded as a measure of the quality of the night - how often have you seen a group or duo playing at a certain other club, only to find on the night only one of them bothered to show up... guests are frequently a big PITA that the door returns at Kef made it dificult to justify..

Dan-ce Promotions :: View Forum - Kef

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Guest Giles Walker
Totally disagree with you. While Kef has really struggled to woo large numbers of punters from some of the recent younger sexier contendors, its wrong to place this blame on those running the nights.

As well as Tez, Lunik deserves big credit for Ketchup - the first regular night in Aberdeen to be playing Breakz, Electro, and more recently Minimal Techno. Also the first (and only) night in Aberdeen to have a resident VJ providing live visuals, back to back 6 deck battle mixing etc etc . All of this Lunik has been doing for the last 2 years.

Guest have been hit and miss at Kef (as Tez knows) and shouldn't be regarded as a measure of the quality of the night - how often have you seen a group or duo playing at a certain other club, only to find on the night only one of them bothered to show up... guests are frequently a big PITA that the door returns at Kef made it dificult to justify..

Dan-ce Promotions :: View Forum - Kef

I'm sorry but i stand by my comment, although i agree that Lunik is a good dj.

It is naive of you to think that Kethup was the first regular night playing Breaks (breakz??) Electro and Minimal techno, Tunnels and Snafu have had Vjs playing regularly for years and there is no such thing as back to back 6 deck battle mixing.

It is a shame that Kef is closing but seriously what the hell are you talking about? I think Lunik and Darryl would be the first to admit that they were not the pioneers of Breaks, Electro or Minimal Techno in Aberdeen. Get a grip.

The Works, Glow 303, Lava and Kef have put on some amazing nights in the past and i think this thread should maybe concentrate on that since we can't stop the closure. I am not up for trying to turn it into some sacred cow.

There was a period in the late 90s and early 00s where it seemed there were endless amazing guests in that place. Kenny having Dj Noize, Cash Money, DJ Krush and heaps more amazing hip hop djs on a Tuesday night?! and then you could pretty much guarantee that thursday through to saturday was gonna be good as well. I had so many good nights back then.

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too many good gigs to mention and some amazing nights.

starting going to kef when it was the works and i was 17. not been for a while as i don't really go to clubnights anymore and they didn't put on as much gigs that interested me.

highlights:

dawn of the replicants and their foam rocket launcher

dundee scamps kingsize getting up and playing ultrasounds instruments before being thrown out

the short lived but really rather good funk night on thursday nights

capdown's two night stand

halloween, twice.

jungle nation.

various hip hop dj's

the few times i djed there for various gigs. the biffy blyro one sticks in my mind.

bouncy floor.

it's a shame it's closing. :(

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I'm gutted I never got to see Capdown at Kef, everytime they played I always had something else on...

Yeah, I only saw Capdown once at Kef, poor show! And I'm never going to get over the fact that I didn't go to see the RX Bandits when they were touring on their Progress album.

Had some rare times in Kef, mainly a heap of brilliant UK ska and punk acts like Failsafe, The King Blues, Random Hand, Spankboy, Sonic Boom Six and such. A couple of the Halloween gigs I went to were ace, I have some funny pictures from 4/5 years ago. Funeral For A Friend were magic and all the times The 44s played seemed to be nice and busy. Only been a few times in the last year or so and played to an awesome crowd with The JB Conspiracy in January, which was ace.

Why is it closing, or have I missed that?

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Yeah, I only saw Capdown once at Kef, poor show! And I'm never going to get over the fact that I didn't go to see the RX Bandits when they were touring on their Progress album.

Had some rare times in Kef, mainly a heap of brilliant UK ska and punk acts like Failsafe, The King Blues, Random Hand, Spankboy, Sonic Boom Six and such. A couple of the Halloween gigs I went to were ace, I have some funny pictures from 4/5 years ago. Funeral For A Friend were magic and all the times The 44s played seemed to be nice and busy. Only been a few times in the last year or so and played to an awesome crowd with The JB Conspiracy in January, which was ace.

Why is it closing, or have I missed that?

its being turned into a hotel

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Guest Neutral

A nice place with a nice atmosphere, glow 303, lava, kef whatever you want to call it made for a great night out. Junglenation and the Jazz on thursday were excellent. I regularly go there and it is the only place i'll pay to get into.

Patrons are friendly, staff are friendly and It was really enjoyable working there, oh I miss the days of "CCTV there is an older gentleman trying to take a young girl up the backdoor"

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The Lava-era will always hold a special place in my heart for being the venue (along with Drakes) that got me into regularly seeing live music locally. I do feel sorry for people just starting to go to gigs now as they'll never have the experience of those two venues (even though there are still some brilliant venues in Aberdeen).

I've got loads of great memories of the place.

- The Liber8 EP launch

- DJ'ing at a function and insulting guest's requests and concentrating on 80's Hip Hop and Springsteen

- Link 80

- The X-Certs playing with Sirius and (the woefully under-rated Miss Black America)

- Me and a friend drunkenly heckling some metal band with 'play Jailhouse Rock' after every song, then realising everyone in the crowd was their friend

- Ridiculous circle-pits which almost always resulted in a fight

- The Jazz Nights (as someone said, one of the few things in Aberdeen that made you feel slightly Bohemian, and it wasn't even full of tossers)

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best gigs and memories for me

1. The UK subs (original line up) full stage invasion by the audience, nicky garrett climbing up on to the air ducting and lettng his guitar fall on charlie's head, charlie lying on the stage with blood seeping everywhere, 300 punks all shouting charlies dead.

Yep, being in the middle of that having a mic shoved in my face as Warhead went on and on was my highlight. The guitar falling through the air is a split second memory I'll never forget.

The Damned were amazing. Muse rocked. CapDown were indeed the house band for a while. Cecil. China Drum. Wilt. King Prawn. Rico. Skindred. 3 Colours Red. Stereophonics & Subcircus! My first time in the place! So many good bands seen there.

I used to enjoy the old Friday "rock / indie" nights - climbing the ladder to talk to the DJ was always a favourite, fuelled by 1 bottles of Red.

Good times.

All the name changes are like a timeline I reckon.

Used to be the best place in town. Catered for all needs I thought. Sad to see it go. Haven't been in fucking ages, though.

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Yep, being in the middle of that having a mic shoved in my face as Warhead went on and on was my highlight. The guitar falling through the air is a split second memory I'll never forget.

The Damned were amazing. Muse rocked. CapDown were indeed the house band for a while. Cecil. China Drum. Wilt. King Prawn. Rico. Skindred. 3 Colours Red. Stereophonics & Subcircus! My first time in the place! So many good bands seen there.

I used to enjoy the old Friday "rock / indie" nights - climbing the ladder to talk to the DJ was always a favourite, fuelled by 1 bottles of Red.

Good times.

All the name changes are like a timeline I reckon.

Used to be the best place in town. Catered for all needs I thought. Sad to see it go. Haven't been in fucking ages, though.

true, warhead went on for 15 mins i think, reckon it was the extended 12'' version.

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Lots of great memories over the years. Had some great moments playing there and a few terrible ones (Elwood's already mentioned the night our old band decided to split up after a particular shit effort from ourselves and the Aberdeen gig going public).

Capdown numerous times, Biffy Clyro, Hundred Reasons (the first time when they were unsigned and the crowd barely reached double figures and the 2nd time when it was mobbed and we supported), McLusky, Muse + Soulwax (brilliant, jawdropping gig). There's loads more but I can't remember them much a the moment.

Can't remember the band but I remember being there the night of the champions league final (think we were supporting actually) and most of the crowd (what few of us there were) spent more time watching the football on the screens at the back than we did watching the headline band play on the stage. They weren't very good anyway.

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Guest Tam o' Shantie

- Me and a friend drunkenly heckling some metal band with 'play Jailhouse Rock' after every song, then realising everyone in the crowd was their friend

Dude wasnt that a Harry Ds gig?

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