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A love letter to the Adelphi and my first cigarette

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The smoking area of Adelphi is a wired fence around a car park. A detached garage door covered in graffiti leans against some trees; there’s also a shipping container used as a shed stuffed in the corner. Scattered randomly are plastic chairs that look like they’ve been stolen or rescued, empty kegs are used as ashtrays and tables, and punters plug their bands to smoking strangers. This is hardly the place for romance, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone as much as the woman who stood opposite me.

I can’t remember her name, but I remember what she looked like. She wore a leather biker jacket, which, at the time, I thought was the most outrageous thing in the world. That’s the kind of thing that people wore in movies, not on the streets of Hull, and yet here it was. Her hair was red, not ginger, but dyed a colour a human can’t make naturally. She had tattoos on her fingers, which curled around the cigarette she was rolling, and I noticed her tongue was pierced when she licked it shut.

This was my first night out. I won’t say how old I was, but I remember being overly cautious about my stepbrother’s ID in my pocket. The first two drinks had already gone to my head, and the venue itself was overwhelming despite the friendly atmosphere. People were older and cooler than me. I felt like an imposter in a scene that I wanted to be a part of but didn’t belong in. I stood at the mirror in the bathroom for longer than was needed, staring at my reflection and expecting someone else, someone more mature, comfortable and experienced to look back, but he never did. It was the same old me, along with random notes scribbled on the glass, like, “Art is for the broken-hearted,” and “Salvador 4 lyf.”

When the music started, I retreated to the smoking area, even though I didn’t smoke, which is where I met this nameless stranger. I can’t remember how we got talking; she would have started it, I would never have dared begin the conversation. When she asked if I’d like a cigarette, I said yes out of panic, and so she started rolling me one.

She spoke when she did it; it looked like it came naturally to her, in the same way that breathing did. I tried to take in what she said as she discussed music, work and the price of drinks, but my mind was filled with trying to think of ways to impress her. In hindsight, one of the best things would have been to listen to her, but at the time, I was working out the best way to hold and smoke a cigarette, lowering my voice when I spoke and rolling my jacket sleeves up a bit so she could see the watch I was wearing.

A love letter to the Adelphi and my first cigarette - 2025

(Credits: Far Out / The New Adelphi Club)

I didn’t know it then, but this moment represented the rest of my life. The music that thudded against walls and travelled muffled into the smoking area, the beautiful stranger, straight out of a movie screen, rolled me a cigarette; there was the rebellion, the desire, the sound; it all culminated and lit something in me that I haven’t been able to extinguish since. At the time, I thought it was because I was like the people in the bands I listened to, smoking, talking to women, drinking, but now I know it’s something deeper than that. 

The stranger finished my cigarette and handed it to me, but her lighter had stopped working. With that, she asked another man standing near us to borrow his, and before I knew it, he was in the conversation. His friend from the bar then joined us, as well as somebody else that the beautiful stranger knew in passing. Before long, the nerves about being in the venue passed, and I was just a part of a natural conversation between a group of well-meaning people with loose connections.

When I went back inside, I did so with this group, and it seemed as though people couldn’t walk past one another without exchanging words, hugging or catching up. It became clear that these walls weren’t just somewhere where I could pretend to be from a band I liked and fall in love with strangers; this was a community in and of itself, somewhere the punters cared about each other, whether it was because they were performing that night or they knew about their personal lives. That woman, the cigarette she rolled, the lighter she borrowed, it was a lot more than a moment with a stranger; it was an insight into what it means to belong to a scene, and there was no better one than that at Adelphi.

I don’t live in Hull anymore, but every time I go to a venue, drunkenly smoke a cigarette at the venue or see a leather biker jacket, I’m taken back to that beer garden, to the good I saw that evening and the beauty that persistently carries throughout the music. The Adelphi was never consistent when booking artists; if you were interesting, you were on, and while the crowd filtered in and out, the regulars remained, and the venue was home to the friendly and curious.

I’ve never seen the stranger again. I probably pass her all the time, but I don’t recognise her, as her image has morphed from a woman in a beer garden in Hull to be the gateway to a brand new chapter in my life. She is a person who appears to be from the silver screen: beautiful, mysterious, and all-knowing.

When we talk about independent venues and what they provide, we are quick to talk about the bands they nurture, and rightly so. Every band that does something original and releases exciting music does so because of experiences they’ve had at shows, and the fact they’ve been given the chance to refine and work on their sound by an independent venue. However, not enough words are dedicated towards the people who make up the audience.

These venues don’t just provide a stage for artists; they also offer a place for local people to meet friends, discover new things about themselves, and enjoy life more. Independent venues have helped contribute towards the music scene but also bring an unprecedented amount of happiness to those who attend them. It’s not a case of whether we should save and support them, but how, because if they stopped operating, the ramifications wouldn’t stop at music, but would spread out into the enjoyment of life itself.

A love letter to the Adelphi and my first cigarette - 2025

(Credits: Far Out / The New Adelphi Club / Ryan Kitching)

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