Exeter Cavern Club...smoke on the dancefloor

Very sad to hear that Exeter Cavern Club was seriously damaged in a fire on Tuesday night and is likely to remain closed for the "foreseeable future". I've only made it along there once since moving down to Exeter (thanks in no small part to South West Trains' decision to stop running trains to my village at 11pm, often precisely the time that the headline act comes on) but I had high hopes of making it a regular haunt once I've sorted out the logistics of getting back...or moved...whichever comes first. For a City with such a big student population there seems to be a distinct lack of decent gig venues (and gigs for that matter) but the Cavern's put on the good stuff for quarter of a century (see the vid above showing the much missed Long Blondes for instance) and if it's lost forever it'd be nothing short of a tragedy. Happily an appeal's already been launched (smashing the £3,000 target in a matter of hours) to raise dosh to cover the repairs so hopefully, like its nearby neighbour, it'll soon rise like a Phoenix (see what I did there?...it's an Exeter thing) as soon as possible.