# What's your Trinity Story?



## BlackArab (Nov 12, 2009)

http://3ca.org.uk/projects/story/news-events/story

I've recently signed on as a volunteer to this project and would be really interested in recording your personal memories of the Trinity Centre. It's still early days and this will be going for a year but I wanted to let you know about it.

We will be looking to interview promoters, bands, artists as well as the people who came to the centre to see and  hear events that have gone on over the years as the link explains.

If you are interested and want to know more, please pm me and I will get in touch but I am happy to discuss it here and answer any questions as best I can. Alternatively feel free to contact the centre ffi.

The aim is to build an archive of a small part of Bristol's socail and cultural history which can be accessed by all in the future.


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## danfb (Nov 13, 2009)

who remembers the bouncy castle style huge mattress in the top room!? 

was a wicked venue for parties in the late nineties, the best in Bristol really.. 4 wicked stacks of speakers, one in each corner and when it was fully decored up (usually by tokyo sex whale) it was such a place to be!! lots of love for trinity, went and saw the orb there last year and it brought it all right back!


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## fractionMan (Nov 13, 2009)

Last time I was there I saw zion train.  Good fun, shit and tiny toilets.

This was quite a while ago.


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## 3_D (Nov 13, 2009)

Saw New Order there on their first UK tour in about 1981. Ach auld fella


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## Geri (Nov 13, 2009)

I used to go clubbing there a lot in the late 90s, Tokyo Sex Whale, Electrik Orgasm and Karanga. Was Shimmy on there as well?

I wasn't a huge fan of techno so I used to mostly sit in the chill out room upstairs, smoking spliffs and talking nonsense all night. Yeah, the toilets were small and there was always a long queue. I remember one time my friend Neil got chucked out for skinning up!


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## Geri (Nov 13, 2009)




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## Geri (Nov 13, 2009)




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## Geri (Nov 13, 2009)




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## nicksonic (Nov 14, 2009)

when i first went with a couple of female friends we were walking towards the gaff but i was about 20m behind them. they stopped at the corner of the street and waited, a few seconds later a guy pulls up at the kerb and says 'how much?'


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## gentlegreen (Nov 15, 2009)

I was a fairly unenthusiastic helper at a "Rock Against Racism" gig in about '77 - I remember "Misty in Roots" were one of the acts .. some bikers turned up and bullied their way in.

The next time I went was April '95 for  "BBC Sound City" featuring Orbital ... my very first "repetitive beats" - type event.


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## Blagsta (Nov 15, 2009)

I went there once for an activist/soundsystem gathering thing in 1999.  Two main memories are Ian Bone invading the stage (I couldn't work out why though!) and the DJ playing loads of Underground Resistance stuff later on.


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## BlackArab (Nov 15, 2009)

danfb said:


> who remembers the bouncy castle style huge mattress in the top room!?



Yep, I remember lying on them at a Concious Club night until the bouncers decided to let them down, at which point we went downstairs to realise that all the others punters had left and we were the last ones.


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## Geri (Nov 15, 2009)

Blagsta said:


> I went there once for an activist/soundsystem gathering thing in 1999.  Two main memories are Ian Bone invading the stage (I couldn't work out why though!) and the DJ playing loads of Underground Resistance stuff later on.



I went to that as well. I think the people from Kebele were doing a vegan refreshment stall and I remember standing their for ages and ages waiting to be served. In fact I was mightily pissed off about being ignored for so long.


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## gentlegreen (Nov 15, 2009)

I may once have helped prevent an accident upstairs. Some idiot had built this "mobile" with a mains motor, connected to the mains via rigid domestic cable and uninsulated alligator clips. 

There was this girl lying behind the "display" in a pool of beer ....

If I encountered that now, I would have chased up the moron who made it, rather than just unplug it. I should have at least confiscated the cable....


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## BlackArab (Nov 15, 2009)

This is all good stuff peeps, I'd like to capture some of it, if you want to get in touch.

Just to give you a nudge here's the one I intend to put forward myself:

_Around 1979/80, I was 11 years old and in my last year of primary school. One week word goes around the playground that there's some sort of Reggae All-Dayer happening at the Trinity Centre on a Saturday and a group of us decide to go and check it out. I was able to get away with this, as like most kids in those days it wasn't unusual to go off and do my own thing all day with my mates as long as I was back by 5-6ish. I'm pretty sure I told my mum that I was off to the library just along from the centre in case I was spotted heading that way. 

Anyway, off we went, somehow managed to blag our way in and we're having a pretty good time. If you've seen the film Babylon you can picture the scene. Now after a while I got thirsty what with it being packed out and pretty hot and being a young un I was too skint to buy a drink at the bar. I remembered though that around the corner on Old Market was a sweet shop and headed off for a bottle of Panda Pop. Getting back, I decided to stay outside the main doors and drink my cola on my own for a while in the fresh air. The next thing I know I'm hearing some approaching chanting and I look around to see a large column of white men being escorted by the Police down the road that leads from the roundabout towards Old Market. You have to remember with it being a Saturday afternoon and the old Rovers ground being at Eastville at the time, this wasn't an unusual sight.

As they drew parallel with Trinity, some of them spotted me and started singing The Goodies song 'Funky Gibbon' while giving me menacing smiles. It was at that point I remember my mum telling me to be careful when I was out as there was an NF march taking place in that area, and oh yes I had now met them. Of course being under escort they didn't do much more than that, thank fuck. What I did realise though was that the Centre was packed to capacity with hundreds of young, black people in their teens and twenties. Added to this was the fact that opposite the Centre was Trinity Road Police Station...

And what happened? Nothing. 

People ask me when I tell this story, why I didn't run inside and tell people what was going on, and yes I could have and between the NF, the police and the blacks it would have been quite simply, carnage. You have to understand though the surprise and sheer terror that the NF had brought to an 11 year old boy and I was rooted to the spot as they marched past and off into the distance. Eventually I slunk back inside with a feeling that I'd let the side down and told a couple of mates but no one else. Later on when I got home, my sisters who had been with my mum shopping on Stapleton Road, had seen the same march (yes, on Stapleton Road!!!) and bragged to me about sticking the v's up at the marchers but I couldn't say anything due to the fact that at the time I was supposed to be sat in a library reading books, not hanging out at the dancehall, listening to soundsystems and witnessing the greatest potential for violence I have seen to this day.

It's funny how these things happen but about 25 years later, I became and remain, good friends with a fellow Bristol Rovers fan who in the late 70s and early 80s, was for a while an NF member. And yes, he's pretty sure he was one of the marchers. Oh and to this day my family have no idea what I was up to that day.

Sorry mum._


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## fractionMan (Nov 18, 2009)

Geri said:


> I went to that as well. I think the people from Kebele were doing a vegan refreshment stall and I remember standing their for ages and ages waiting to be served. In fact I was mightily pissed off about being ignored for so long.



I remember some sort of vegan stall.  Was that a one off?


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## Geri (Nov 18, 2009)

fractionMan said:


> I remember some sort of vegan stall.  Was that a one off?



Yeah, it was just for the meeting. I was about to blow my top when someone I knew turned up and served me.


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## zog (Dec 14, 2009)

Only been there the once for a NYE bash with DiY a few years back. good night, nice venue.


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## kalidarkone (Dec 15, 2009)

Geri said:


>



Oh look it's Neil!! Guy with big glasses, blue coat holding a can. He lives in Thailand now-in fact when after the Tsunami hit a few years ago he maxed out all his credit cards to the point of bankrupcy, so he could help out folk He is a lovely guy. I guess if your gonna max out ya cards that is the way to do it!!


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## Geri (Dec 15, 2009)

I think I've seen him around (not recently, obv.)


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## Zaskar (Dec 25, 2009)

I attended one of thier meetings once - honestly I am amazed that anything ever gets organised.


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## fizzerbird (Jan 7, 2010)

Oh...Not the Police station then? ok...


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## danfb (Oct 26, 2010)

anymore in this? love trinity


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## DaMadBelgian (Oct 30, 2010)

I like the fact that those pics have been shamelessly ripped from my Facebook photo albums ! Although if it was done by the only Geri I know, it's fine, otherwise shame on you Geri


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## butchersapron (Nov 3, 2010)

Is this A?


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## gentlegreen (Nov 3, 2010)

Desperate to get my weekend aerobics, I often went to new things just to see if I would like them, and on this occasion it was an early UK Garage night with Nigel Benn the boxer DJ-ing.

I was a 37 year old white bloke with a pony tail and must often have stood out like a sore thumb at these events- but generally speaking, being a hippy, I got left alone.

I may have been slightly intoxicated, but it was a very surreal night - for the short time I was there.

There was a stretched white limo outside with a very young blonde woman in the passenger seat ....

There were at least two seperate identifiable groups of men who turned up. The first were all in black - with berets and masses of bling. They parked a crate of White stripe in the middle of the dance floor. In my naivete I'm assuming they were "yardies" or wannabes?

The other lot were all in sharp suits.

I probably didn't hang around for very long ...


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