The legendary Joy Division played their only Huddersfield gig at the Coach House Club on September 22, 1978.
And Julian Riley, a researcher for a Joy Division website, is looking for memories about both the concert and the venue.
Joy Division was a post punk band that came out of Salford in the late 1970s.
Their acclaimed lyricist and vocalist, Ian Curtis, suffered epilepsy. His illness and personal problems caused him to commit suicide in 1980.
The remaining three members of the band changed their name to New Order and went on to even greater success.
“Last year, I published a lengthy piece on Joy Division’s Yorkshire gigs, including a mysterious show they played at The Coach House,” says Julian.
He visited the town and was told the site of the Coach House was now occupied by The Lord Wilson bar.
Sorry, Julian. That’s not the Coach House.
At that time, I was covering rock for the Examiner. The town had an incredibly vibrant music scene with many live venues, including Ivanhoe’s, West Riding, Albion, White Lion and the Polytechnic Great Hall.
The Coach House was below the junction with Zetland Street, next to a music shop and King Street Fisheries, which at that time sold the best fish and chips in town.
If my calculations are correct, the location of the club would now be about where Costa Coffee is in the central mall of the King Street shopping centre.
The club was run by, I think, a gentleman called Arthur Lacey, who always wore a dress suit, a frilled dress shirt, a bow tie as big as a vampire bat, and a gallon of Brut aftershave. He was a nice bloke.
The premises had three floors and the sort of carpets where your feet stuck if you stayed in one place too long.
Does anyone have any photographs or memories of the club? Can they identify its location? Better still, was anyone at the Joy Division gig? Send to the usual address.
