Rebels Night Club

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In the 1980's and early 1990's, people who followed rock music were at home in Rebels. There were times when I was in there three nights in one week. The place was Heavy Metal heaven, long hairds from pillar to post, denim and leather, headbangers and moshers - the lot.

View of Rebels from Dixon Lane,
the white block is the body of the club.

Rebels entrance, and the stairs,
which are marked by the
windows.

     The club was situated on the top floor of a supermarket block, on the corner of Dixon lane and Haymarket, Sheffield. You entered a dark doorway on Dixon lane and walked up seven short flights of stairs, whereupon you'd pay for your ticket in a small hatch, turn left to the door and be relieved of it by a doorman who would thread it onto a string. No one ever read what it said on the tickets maybe it was a message from Tommy Vance!
     When you progressed through the main doors into the club, the toilets were left, and the main room right, but in the wall in front of you was a window containing a display of leather jackets and stuff and an advert for Pippy's alternative clothing shop.
     You then join the queue at the cloakroom window and hand your jacket in for 50p and a ticket, before getting a drink at the bar.      The club had previously been opened by the Stringfellow brothers in the seventies, and called Penthouse. Re-opened in December 1981 as Rebels, this would have coincided with the NWBHM ( the new wave of british heavy metal ) which was doing big buisiness at the time, with bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Ozzy and Saxon. And later boosted by massively popular American heavy metal and rock from such as Van Halen, W.A.S.P. Metallica etc..     It was a fairly small place with an official maximim capacity of only 600, the main room measuring 2697 square feet.      People from all the nearby towns would make regular visits to the club, the next decent rock club was Rock City at Nottingham.

     The main club consisted of one room, one bar and one DJ box. The floor was always a mess of slop, which was basically spilled beer with loads of boots, shoes, trainers and baseball boots jumping up and down on it. When it got on the bottom of your jeans, it was like tar in the morning. There were TV sets, on brackets high up the wall, often playing repeats of the power hour, rock show, or a feature film.
     The furniture, such as it was, was a right state, any colour long faded to black. Plenty of smoke to give you a bit of atmosphere.
     There was always a pool table, but after 9pm it was used as a seating facility, and often had handbags and jackets on it.

Rebels Floor Plan Mid 1980's
See Below For New More Accurate Plan

In the 1980's, the seating around the outside was bare wood, but apparently painted black. In addition there were a number of loudspeaker cabinets, actually positioned within the seating, as if part of an MFI do-it-yourself nightclub. This had the effect of causing the seats to vibrate and resonate with the music as they were physically joined.
In these days, the sound system was loud and raucous, but not piercing. This could be because the speakers were damp and in bad condition due to the sweaty atmosphere they operated in every night, and had completely lost their sharpness.

Closed

During the ten years of my patronage 1985 - 1995 (when it was closed ), the place was refurbished twice. And apart from a lick of paint, the DJ booth was moved to the corner and the bar was made smaller, changing from a large L-shape to a straight bar along one wall. The beer always seemed a little weak, and many people only drunk from bottles.
Despite being a busy and cramped night club, there were some shin high, very small bar tables, which had permanent rings on the surface. These were lined up around the outside of the room along the low fitted wall seats.

Rebels Floor Plan 1990's Until Closed
See Below For New More Accurate Plan

     The next refurb of Rebels, the sound system consisted of ceiling mounted cabs, and a couple separate bass cabs down near the floor. This left the impression of extremely sharp, trebly music. But was a much better professional sound and was probably 2-5 Kw output.
     The lighting had been replaced as well, and now there was twirling lights and simple moving lights, as well as stacks of smoke and Strobe lights. Near the bar was always ample UV type light provided by a fluorescent purple tube. This would make teeth and white clothes appear glowing and peculiar. Also dandruff would show up very distinctly....
     There was a very curious, large, flower - petal shaped mirror fastened to the wall where the old DJ booth used to be.

Rebels Entrance, January 2000

Nature

Because of the nature of rock music in this era, different groups of people would dance to different styles of it, so there would be people hanging around drinking and chatting, and rarely would everyone be on the dance floor at once.

1. THRASH - when a thrash type song was played, a large group of sweaty blokes would often engage in either EXTREME headbanging, or locked arms, in and out stuff as if (new york new york by frank Sinatra ) was playing, but without the can-can bit. These people often seen with Bermuda shorts, since the Anthrax Phenomenon.
Other Thrash type bands include, Chaos Ad, Slayer,

2. HEAVY ROCK - when hard or heavy rock music was being played, especially Van Halen or AC/DC then, the air guitars would come out, and people would be pretending that they could really be playing the music themselves, and that they knew every note, and they were a guitar virtuoso.

3. FUNKY ROCK - On hearing the Chili Peppers or Faith No More, then a select band would be trying to emulate the bizarre and funky dancing of the band's lead singer on the concerts and videos.

4. ROCK MUSIC - Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Inxs were favourites of the women in the club, and as a consequence, the dancing would be pretty much the type you would find in a standard chart nightclub.

5. BLUES ROCK MUSIC - Black Crowes, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Thunder, Badlands would find a small number of committed individuals that would be stood statuesque, often with arm raised and eyes closed, as every note of blues rock washed through their soul.

6. HIPPY MUSIC - Often an old steeley Dan number would bring out a couple of old hippies, who would often just sway about a bit to the music. Probably smoking some dirty cannabis, the scruffy devils!

7. HEAVY METAL - Spotty teenagers dressed in black concert bought t-shirt, tight jeans and white baseball boots or trainers would play wiggly air guitars and headbang to this.

8. GOTHS - Three quarters of goths were female. As if it was a stage that they were going through, like Puberty, and they didn't know why. They would be dressed in black, with strange gothic jewellery, and sometimes lacy cuffs or collars. Dark makeup like the Addams Family was a necessity, especially half a bag of black eye shadow and black lipstick. And Always black straight hair. Goth music was :- The Mission, The Cult ( early ), The Sisters Of Mercy, Fields Of The Nephelim and Siouxie and the Banshees.
They danced by putting their arms in the air and bringing them down again, and using wrist and finger movements all the while. Like you would imagine a witch casting a spell.

The end came for Rebels in about 1995 or 1996, when the licence and staff were transferred to the Capitol. Which was much bigger, but with no atmosphere at all. In fact the place was a barn, and rock night only lasted about six months before moving to Cuba's, then Kiki's, then eventually to the Corporation, where it is now.

The Plot Thickens
17th December 2000

Due To An Unusual Turn Of Events, It Has Been Possible for me to make a much more accurate plan of the inside of Rebels nightclub. . . The rooms aren't accurately measured, but are approximately drawn, to give a good idea of the internal layout.

There are a number of rooms of which I was not previously aware.
1) The manager's office, in the corridor on the way to the ladies.
2) The Kitchen, Between the bar and the Gents Toilets
3) The beer room (beer cellar) Behind the gents, the kitchen and the bar.
4) The Ladies Powder room, obviously where the rock chicks used to go, to re-apply that makeup.
5) The Pool table closet. A cupboard behind the pool table.
6) The Wedge shaped Closet, Between the bottle bar and the haymarket front wall.
7) The Beer Barrel Cupboard, Underneath the main stairs.

A Little New Bit

I have found out that when the club was Penthouse, the front windows were open. When I went after this I wasn't aware of the front windows at all, they were covered up with wood on the inside, and we all thought that it was just the wall.