Well known stars at new Venue

I attended a launch party with a few friends on Wednesday March 28, drawn by the prospect of free wine, conversation and a night out.
Le Venue is a new venture offering a locus for private parties, art and business events, promotions and the like. Described by the proprietors as an exclusive Private Hire Venue it occupies warehouses on the old Rother Ironworks site in South Undercliff.

Needless to say the place was packed and the wine flowed.
An innocent abroad, I had ventured forth without my jaunty reporter’s hat and had not researched Le Venue’s promotional material, which I now discover as I put this together, offers “a fusion of fine wines and authentic music from the wine producing regions”.
This is offered in the Wine Warehouse part of what is effectively a private members club.
And music there was. One of the partners in the enterprise is the owner of the Grapevine in Conduit Hill and had invited his regular local musicians along.

Le Venue is on two levels, the ground floor where my group of friends quaffed while resolving world issues to a piano accompaniment from Steve Zackim.
Upstairs in a larger bar and lounge were, I discovered much later, jazz duo Ellie Laine and Robert Reid coming to the end of a set.
I did manage to catch most of Mick Bolton’s second set. He set off down a rollicking “Route 66” into the Kink’s “Waterloo Sunset” and then the James Brown declaration “I Feel Fine”.
A couple of Carol King songs followed, “You’ve Got a Friend” and “I Feel The Earth Move”.
Songs from my youth, Bill Haley’s “See You Later Alligator” eliding into “Green Door”, dredged up memories of Frankie Vaughan’s UK version in 1956 and made me feel too old to be out without a minder.
I left, appropriately, to the strains of Bowie’s “All the Young Dudes” and trudged home.
I will try to listen to Ellie Laine, Robert Reid and Steve Zackim as soon as I am able and I look forward to hearing the local musicians from the various wine regions of France, Spain, Italy and even further afield.

Photos: Gerard Reilly