Whats in a name?

The area around Bridge Street underground has gone through a lot of changes. At one point it was the centre of all Glasgow trade with Central station sited there prior to its moving across the river (more on that another day). After WWII and the motorway plans were drawn up, the final link of the system was to head down highstreet across the river, passing through the gorbals straight over Bridge Street and ending at the Kingston Bridge. Though this was never completed the whole area was left in Limbo while the threat of the new road hung over it.

The road never came but ,partly as a result of the limbo status, while a lot of the area was knocked down the two large public buildings were left alone. The Colisseum Theatre which became a cinema and then a bingo before ending up empty and the Eglinton Street United Secession Church which became the Bedford then the New Bedford cinema, then "Glasgow's most successful bingo club" before in 2003 becoming the Carling Academy. This is how most people these days will know it, but that too has just changes and now as the result of a new deal it has become the O2 Academy.

Not sure that this is really news or not but I always find the stories that buidlings go through very interseting and I lioe to wonder what the original Church goers would make of the fact that someone with the name Ghostface Killah is performing where their alter used to sit?

I've never actually been to the Carl . . . O2 Academy but my friends who go to gigs a lot say that its not that great a venue and that the sound isn't too hot?

Anyone else had problems there? Where is the best Southside place for gigs?

O2 name change

Images of the Bedford and Coliseum

History of Bedford Cinema