For a quarter of a century, Newcastle was my nearest, if quite distant, "big" city and I have visited it many, many times, both for day trips and overnight stays - concerts, cinema, theatre, shopping, using the airport, meeting record dealers, just plain touristy things, even a record launch once. There was a regular "Mr Bob" group that met monthly and probably still does and, though I attended infrequently, that alone commends to someone like me. It is a terrific place and the people, as someone said, are great.
That said, Newcastle City Hall, for all its intimacy and for all its good memories (the Swan Hunter concert and Blondie in concert come immediately to mind), has its limitations. It is a long, narrow hall; the view from the back of the stalls is not great. The balconies along the side do not offer the best of views, either. Because of these limitations, the stage is set quite high, so that the view from the front row of the stalls is also uncomfortable because, close as you might be, you have to look up at a sharp angle, seeing only the top half of the principal performer and even less of the band members. The view from the rear of the balcony is better but, of course, a bit distant. The stage is narrow, which must have its limitations, and I believe the load-in/load-out space is quite restrictive, too. Much as I like the venue, it is far from ideal ideal. The Metro Radio Arena, to which I've only gone once, is also far from ideal. I have never attended anything at The Sage, just across the River Tyne in Gateshead, but friends in the area have said its a great venue but its capacity is only around 1600, even less than Newcastle City Hall.
I know that most of the older venues have limitations of one kind or another. I really like the Royal Albert Hall, which also holds some great memories (one or two awful ones, too - such as Ornette Coleman with Yoko Ono, which was a dreadful experience), but the view from the stalls, once you get into rows in double figures, is poor. Mostly, though, it has good sightlines and, now they've largely sorted out the acoustics, a pretty good sound, especially for such an old building. Also, for a building with a fairly large capacity (around 5000), it has a good atmosphere, too. A visiting New Yorker I met at a concert there last year, his first time in the venue, told me it must be the greatest venue he had experienced.
All of the above is a long way of saying that Newcastle should get itself a modern, mid-size concert hall, a place it can feel proud of, and that, as MK gets older and comes to think about what he should do with his wealth and his fame, he could do worse than start an endowment for such a venue in his "home" city.
