Rockshots, Waterloo Street I

Alfred Wilson House was home to some unlikely bedfellows in the 1970s. Passersby had grown used to the sounds of oompah bands in its Hofbrauhaus Beer Keller, the grunts and groans from the mucky movies and their audiences in the Studio cinema, and the loud disco beats of Scamps nightclub. So it's safe to say the area was well primed for the Hi-NRG tunes and high camp antics when Scamps became Rockshots in the early Eighties, Newcastle's first big gay club. Weekends there were as lively as anywhere in town, the customers pursuing each other with a vigour that made the Bigg Market look tame.

Pretty much anything was tolerated at Rocky's, which also extended to people experimenting with their musicality. Tuesdays and Thursdays hosted an indie night and a reggae club, both of which were popular with students, many of whom had begun their evening in the Trent House. The pub's management was determined to offer them a seamless transition from jukebox to after-hours dance-floor, and Tuesdays and Thursdays were taken over by their appropriately named Determination Inc. The growth of Newcastle's gay scene coincidenced with the demise of Rockshots, as the scene moved westwards to the 'Pink Triangle'. Determination Inc was the launchpad for World Headquarters, a wholly independent club which followed the action, opening on the edge of the Triangle in the late Eighties.