After digging through our archives we discovered some old screen prints for posters promoting Leeds club nights dating back to 1998. A wave of nostalgia ensued for those nights long gone. We did some research and have included what we found about these now defunct clubs.
The Cockpit
This live music venue on Swinegate was the place to see cutting edge music acts on the ascent. Huge acts such as Arctic Monkeys, Coldplay and Korn played there in their earlier days. The venue also hosted the likes of Amy Winehouse, The White Stripes and Muse.
The three-room club, which opened in 1994 and closed in 2014, was also the venue for hip club nights. The site was the home of the ever popular Slam Dunk festival, whose previous headliners include The All-American Rejects and All Time Low. It is also notoriously where the Kaiser Chiefs got signed.
A sweaty, 500 capacity venue, The Cockpit was the place to go for music lovers and a cornerstone of the indie music scene. Its vacant shell still bears its sign beneath the railway arches, a haunting reminder of gigs long gone. Will we ever see its revival to former glory?
The Orbit
Legendary Techno club / dungeon, The Orbit ran from 1991 when it started playing hardcore right through until 2003. With locals pinning it as ‘the best techno club in the world’ during that time, you only need to catch a glimpse of these pictures to see it in all it’s bass-fuelled glory. Essentially a room with a sound system of extortionate proportions, it used to rain sweat as the night went on.
Image Credit : James Lange https://jameslangephotography.com/welcome-2/clubbing/the-orbit-morley-1994/
Club Uropa
This club, at Grand Arcade, New Briggate, was another venue established during the clubland boom of the 1990s. It was previously Mister Craig’s and later Gatecrasher (also defunct). Sundissential North proved a phenomenon at Club Europa in Leeds city centre from the late 1990s with its hard house sub genre blazing a trail. Commonly people arrived at the club in fancy dress or elaborate outfits making them immediately appear dramatically different from other people attending more mainstream nightclubs.
The club night exploited licensing loopholes to allow alcohol to be sold on a Sunday. This year fans enjoyed a reunion night hosted at Beaver Works in October.
Majestyk
The Majestic building in City Square was built as a cinema with 2,400 seats in 1922. By the 1950s the venue was a ballroom and in 1969 the building reopened as a Top Rank bingo club.
The bingo hall later closed and after a few years empty the building became home to the Majestyk nightclub, a cheesy, dance club night for Leeds’ nightlife dwellers for many years. At one time one of Leeds most popular and biggest nightclubs, with a massive 3,310 capacity. Its eventual dwindling popularity and increasing competition lead to its closure in June 2006.
There were plans to revive the building into a leisure venue featuring a cinema, restaurants and a gym.
However, on Tuesday the 30th of September 2014 Fire Crews were called to the Majestic in City Square Leeds after reports of smoke coming from the first floor, the building seems to have survived, but its ornate roof is no longer.
Now this beautiful building is to be Channel Fours new head quarters. The prime location of the Grade A listed building means that it is a great venue to host the broadcasters in the heart of the city.
See below a selection of more posters we found. Let us know your favourite old club and nights you want to see brought back!
If Irvine Welsh used to go it must have been cool.
Too cool for fools!!! These posters announce the now well established MINT clubs grand opening.
This venue in Grand Arcade hosted the legendary Back To Basics house night in the 1990s that attracted big name DJs including Danny Rampling, plus sets from Daft Punk and Goldie.
https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/best-in-leeds/gigs-clubs/another-22-closed-leeds-clubs-14961458
