The Harp Bar, Belfast - Home of Belfast Punk 1978-82

8.1 / 10

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The Legendary Harp Bar, home of Belfast PuNk! Leave any stories, comments and photographs. THE HARP BAR STORY...home of Belfast Punk Rock!! 1978 -1982 The Harp Bar, Hill Street was the home of Belfast PuNk Rock. In 1978 Hill Street was a very threatening cobbled stoned back Street, in a forgotten part of Belfast....nothing like the thriving Arts & Cultural centre of the Cathedral Quarter that it is known as today, with a multitude of music venues, bars and restaurants! (Please note this is not the new Harp Bar in the Cathedral Qtr) It was the equivalent to that other legendary punk venue 'The Roxy Club' in London. Read more It was a bit of a dive, with a core group of punks attending regularly in the early days to watch local punk bands, namely The Outcasts, Rudi, The Androids, Ruefrex and Stage B, who played there on weekends. Belfast became a ghost town after 6pm creating a tumbleweed effect across the city when the security barriers closed their gates to the city centre traffic. There were very few live music venues for the bands to play in the city centre, except the Pound Club and the punks/bands felt they needed a place to call their own. After months of organising private parties at hotels and bars in the suburbs of Belfast, Joe Moody and Jeff Moon, two members of the band Victim eventually discovered a place only too willing to host a gig and so the Harp Bar PuNk venue was born when it opened its doors in Hill Street on 21st April 1978 for the first punk gig with two superb bands, Victim and The Androids playing upstairs in the Harp Lounge with a capacity for two hundred people, At last they found a home, even if it was reluctantly received by the locals who begrudgingly accepted their strange clothes, bizarre hairstyles and music allowing the bands and punks alike to express themselves in their DIY home made clothes and fast energetic music!! Bands were forming each week and punks were creating their own identity with redesigned second hand clothes before bravely making their way across the city to hear The Outcasts, Rudi and others. A very dangerous but exciting time to be 17 years old! Outside, the doorway was a caged entrance with CCTV cameras and bollards for security. Inside there were the wonderful delights of a space invaders gaming machine, a pool table, soft seating and the locals, sitting quietly giving suspicious looks to the punks on arrival, then leaving them to enjoy the bands. Despite a sign advertising Pub Grub, there was a limited choice of food on the menu and a pickled egg jar sat on the counter for what looked like years, but no one would ever ea Update description

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Hill Street, Belfast, NI (The Plaque is facing The Dirty Onion)
Belfast

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