‘’69 was cheapo wine / Have a good time / What’s your sign?
Float up to the Roundhouse/On A Sunday afternoon"
– Saturday Gigs, by Mott The Hoople
There aren’t too many venues immortalised in song. But when Ian Hunter name-checked the Roundhouse in Mott The Hoople’s 1974 hit Saturday Gigs the place had already secured a place in the hearts of London’s rock’n’roll fans. Some referred to it as England’s answer to The Fillmore West in San Francisco. And from the moment the first bands played at the Roundhouse, on October 15, 1966 – for an all-night rave headlined by Pink Floyd and The Soft Machine to launch the now legendary ‘underground’ newspaper International Times – this disused Victorian railway shed was probably the nearest thing to hippy heaven the nation had to offer.
