Just three months after the September 1976 punk festival, the Roxy opened in a former gay club at 41-43 Neal Street in the West End of London.
The Clash were booked for the club’s launch and everyone from Marc Bolan to Led Zeppelin flocked to the club.
Opened by Andrew Czezowski and Susan Carrington, The Roxy played host to Generation X, The Heartbreakers, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Wire, Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Slits, Squeeze, The Vibrators, The Stranglers, The Adverts, The Only Ones and many more.
The audience ranged from girls as young as 13, who changed out of their school uniform in the toilets, to the daughter of the English ambassador to Russia, and Soho strippers as well as music fans and journalists.
Below the streets of a then derelict Covent Garden, Don Letts spun the tunes while boys and girls in bin liners fucked, mutilated and gave haircuts to each other in the bogs.
Virtually every act who played at The Roxy walked away with a record deal, but despite such success, the club was a short-lived affair. It remained open for just 100 nights.
