Bands often play live before they record. I think Barbarellas in 1979 is possible. The club was on the Bingley Hall side.
I frequented the Rum Runner, Rebeccas and Barbarellas in the early '70s. The RR casino entrance was down at the left side of the alley. You had to look back to see it from the club entrance. I never did go into the Casino, but shuffled around on the dance floor, leaned up the pillars and made many new friends there. I should still have a Rum Runner card in my memorabilia (stuff shoved in a box somewhere, never to be found when searched for). I am pretty sure that it has a black footprint on it. No, I'm on a quest!
My friend (wife's cousin) Derek (RIP) and I used to escort his girfriend Anna (RIP) into Barbarellas, where she worked behind the upper bar up beyond the dance floor. We spent may hours there drinking and on the crowded dance floor strutting some pretty embarrassing moves in a "sartorial nightmare" of clothes that I wouldn't be seen dead in today!
We saw many big name groups play. One of the most memorable and completely different to the mainstream acts of the day, was the Drifters. They put on a great show with a drum solo during the act lasting several minutes while the performers took an off stage break. I still can't get "down at the boardwalk out of my head"! Immediate visions of those nights at Barbarellas spring to mind, the moment I hear that tune.
One evening as Dek and I were entering Barbarellas, a ruckus broke out with two bouncers just inside the front entrance, Barry and ?, who were outnumbered. Other club goers were just walking past into the club, but we stepped to assist with the ejection of the undesirables. We were never allowed to pay for anything again after that night.
In '73-'74 I worked on vehicles by day and for Star Taxi in York Road Erdington by night, so frequenting all of the pubs and clubs around Brum was the norm. I have no idea what fares would be today, but private hire car far from Erdington into town was £1 for the approximate 4.6 mile trip up the Aston Expressway and it was pretty lucrative going back and forth after the pubs closed and the clubs filled up and closed again. We also encountered the IRA bombings in the city, which were scary times for all.
Politically incorrect in these times, but perhaps the only way to describe one very well-known character, known as "Barry the Queer", who hung out on Broad street. If you frequented "town" in those days, you will most certainly remember Barry as being flamboyant and larger than life, in times where society wasn't at all accepting.
So, for those of us who grew up and became adults during those times, there were many firsts as dare I say, "trendsetters" much to the disdain of our parents from their more staid old ways. To their defence, they had missed out on a chunk of life due to WWII interrupting their young adulthood antics. If the kids today think that they are doing something new, they would do well to use their cell phones to search and check where it happened first and the dates.
Despite having immigrated to Canada back in late '74 and having traveled across many countries, the most fun that I ever had was in those days as a young adult in Birmingham and I do use the term "adult" rather loosely, because there are accounts for many antics of those times, that I am bound never to post anywhere!
