Frogmore Street, Bristol BS1 5NA

Venue details from my experience of these recent gigs (with links to those blogs):

Heaven 17 2021

The Lighting Seeds 2021

Gary Numan 2019

I’ve only ever known this venue under it’s O2 Academy banner, having only been travelling here over about the last 5 years. As well as those visits featured in my blogs above, I’ve seen Heaven 17 here a few years back; The Psychedelic Furs and The Hunna.

O2 Academy front doors

Once inside, the merch stand is set up on the left. There is a small bar beyond the merch, and an area with a few seats which can be shut off sometimes – it’s just beyond a wall of historic notes.

The wall of historic notes

Usually as you enter you will swing right and through the heavy glass doors that keep the sound in and into the main auditorium. It holds 1,650 people – all standing – and that’s if the balcony is open. It isn’t always.

Looking back up – the balcony and bar below – handy raised platform for a good view

It is one of those balconies which is fine if you are hugging a place at the rail – otherwise it can be difficult to find a gap to peer through. There is a bar upstairs also. People tend to clutter the stairs for an elevated view and all in all I’d rather be downstairs. The best spots I find are the slightly raised platforms to the rear leaft and rear right of the main floor of the auditorium.

It’s ‘side on’ to the stage if you get my drift so no one is that far back, even if opting to stay on the raised part in front of the long bar at the back.

Lightening Seeds at Bristol O2 Academy 2021

Pleased to see Shipyard ale appear on draught at my November 2021 visit.

It’s one if the better medium sized venues I’ve been to and they are a circuit regular for many tours. Unfortunately it’s not that convenient by car or train from Poole.

If coming by train it’s a 1.1 mile walk from Bristol Templemeads. If driving, the large old multi-storey Trenchards car park is just next to the venue….if you can navigate to find it. Parking on upper floors near the exit floor can speed your way out afterwards – I’m usually staying over when in Bristol.

Pre/Post Gig

The obvious spot for a pre-gig pint is the oldest pub in Bristol, The Hatchet Inn, handily just over from the O2 Academy. Deceptively spacious but often busy of course on gig nights. A wide variety of ales on tap. They do food also.

A regular pre-gig meal spot is the practical and speedy Wong’s Chinese restaurant round the corner, up Denmark Street from the Hatchet Inn. Last visit they had switched to a QR code ordering arrangement which is a bit naff but it works.

Wong’s excellent Chinese restaurant

If you’re hanging around afterwards, especially when at one of those early curfew weekend gigs – where they get the grey haired gig goers out early and let the kids in for a second sitting – then I recommend a visit to the Smoke and Mirrors bar further along Denmark Street from Wong’s, away from The Hatchet. Late licence and more live music.

That’s my O2 Academy Bristol round up. I’ll update this next time I visit.

Published by ivaninblack

Still wild about live music - bands - gigs - festivals - after 42 years at it. All photos have been snapped by me or I will point out otherwise - I'll even own up to any blurry mobile phone ones. If gigaholic is a phrase then in recent years I think I've become one.

Join the Conversation

3 Comments

Leave a comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: