Before the New Romantics of the 1980s, there were the so-called Blitz kids (the first mention of this term is in the Daily Mirror of the 3rd of March 1980), a bunch of post-punk youngsters with outrageous styles of clothes and make-up who hung out at the Blitz Club on Great Queen Street. Behind the success of the venue were Steve Strange, Welsh frontman of the new-wave synthpop band Visage, and Rusty Egan, drummer of Glen Matlock‘s Rich Kids. Egan was the DJ at Blitz, from 1979 until 1981. Whilst there, he introduced German (Kraftwerk), Japanese (Yellow Magic Orchestra) and British (Eno, Ultravox, Landscape) electronic/synth-pop to the British club scene, almost single-handedly putting together the soundtrack for the New Romantic movement.
Spandau Ballet earned their PRS first-gig plaque in 2014, for their 1979 debut at The Blitz Club. Siouxsie Sioux and Billy Idol were in the audience that night. Later, the club’s cloakroom attendant George O’Dowd was to become internationally famous in his own right as Boy George, fronting Culture Club.
The venue now hosts a night club called The Red Rooms.
Address: 4 Great Queen Street, WC2B 5DJ
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