10 Reasons Why Not To Visit The Underground
Venue Manager Lee Barber Runs Through The Reasons People Say They Don’t Go To
The Underground…
1. You can’t even pay on card in there.”
Yes you can, and contactless, too, for almost a year now. We work with Square to provide card payment facilities, who are great for small independent companies like us, cus their transaction fee rates aren’t ridiculously high, meaning you guys can grab your £1 shots without worrying about a minimum spend. Look at us being all up to date.
2. “It’s always freezing.”
OK, we get it’s not exactly roasting in there, but we have made improvements to our heating (we bought some heaters). January was bloody cold but we didn’t have anyone shivering inside so we’ll take that as a win.
3. “The sound in there is sh*t.”
In all fairness, the sound at The Underground has always been second to none, with a plethora of awesome sound guys. But we don’t want to take that for granted, so in 2019 we brought in a completely new sound system which is maintained and improved upon every week.
4. “Only thing to drink is Red Stripe.”
Don’t get me wrong, Red Stripe is and always will be the staple drink at The Underground. But our bar has a lot more to offer, including our very own Underground Pale Ale and Lager on draught, available exclusively at The Underground. We also recently launched our Sh*t Mix Menu, 7 gloriously sh*t cocktails with no thought of presentation whatsoever, but they’re 2 for £6 and they get you smashed, so who cares? Aside from that, we also do wines, craft beers, house and premium spirits.
5. “The club nights are always dead.”
See below video. Taken on a Tuesday night in February. ON A TUESDAY NIGHT IN FEBRUARY. Aside from that, Pete Bromley hosts monthly B2B parties that are free entry, we have Skullcracker metal night once a month, and Devotion recently celebrated their 1st birthday with us after relocating to The Underground in 2019. We also have some pretty big tricks up our sleeves for this year…
6. “The toilets are rank man.”
Yeah, what did you expect though? The toilet seats and toilet flushes have to get replaced every other week, and that in itself is hard enough to keep on top of sometimes. We’re a dive bar and music venue, I’d be pretty disappointed if the toilets had gold-tainted taps instead of a load of graff. Seriously though, we did have a bit of work done in the gents recently, throwing up some tiles and installing a new ceiling.
7. “It’s just a dark and depressing room.”
You definitely need to come pay us a visit if that’s your impression of The Underground. To coincide with a full rebrand launched at the stroke of midnight into 2020, the whole venue has been brought to light with incredible graffiti, including a Judge Dredd piece and two, yes two, of Stoke’s famous owls. We’ve also dug out a load of old gig posters and put them up in homage to the simply epic gigs that went down here back in the day.
8. “But it’s just a metal venue!”
Yes, we host Metal 2 The Masses, and we have metal gigs on here, and we are massively proud of that, but we do so much more. Every genre is welcome at The Underground, we’re a music venue because the whole team loves music. We put on shows from all kinds of genres, and will continue to do so, and same goes for our club nights, but we also have film club, quiz nights and community events too.
9. “The staff are terrible.”
Well, I made this one up to be honest. The Underground has always, for as long as I can remember, been known for how friendly and sound the staff are, and the current team are certainly no different. In truth, it’s possibly the best team I’ve ever worked with, and I just wanted to big them all up a bit here.
10. “The Underground just can’t compete with The Sugarmill.”
Couldn’t help but laugh on the odd few occasions this one’s cropped up. It’s 2020, there’s simply no room in the music industry for independent music venues to be in competition with each other, especially in a city as small as Stoke-on-Trent. This is a subject I could talk about for hours, but to put it simply, The Sugarmill is great at what it does, The Underground is great at what it does. We try to work together as venues as much as possible to make sure our events don’t clash, so that you guys never have to miss out on anything, and the Unders staff go to the Mill, and Mill staff come to Unders, and it’s pure bants. We even have local bands consisting of both Unders and Mill staff. Both venues are a major part of Stoke’s music heritage, to lose either would be an absolute travesty for the scene.