Bought for £1: the story of Brixton Academy

Brixton Academy has hosted the last gig by The Smiths, a webcast watched by 9 million people, and enough recordings to fill a shelf of live albums. It was also, for almost a decade, an empty cinema that its owners wanted to knock down. This is the story of how a south London picture palace became one of the best-loved rooms in music.

A picture palace on Stockwell Road

It started in 1929 as the Astoria, a cinema and theatre built on the site of a private garden in Stockwell Road. The architects Thomas Somerford and E. A. Stone designed it, and it cost £250,000. The opening show was the Al Jolson film The Singing Fool, followed by a variety act broadcast by the BBC. It had nearly 3,000 seats, although the theatre's own publicity claimed 4,500.

Behind the Art Deco frontage, the auditorium was decorated in an Italian Renaissance style, framed by a grand proscenium arch. The building is Grade II listed.

Closed, and nearly demolished

The cinema closed on 29 July 1972. That September it reopened as a discotheque called the Sundown Centre, which lasted about four months. Even that short life left a mark: Hawkwind recorded part of their live album Space Ritual at the Brixton Sundown in 1972. In May 1974, planning permission was sought to demolish the building and replace it with a motor showroom and a petrol station. The scheme was scrapped, and the Rank Organisation kept the empty building heated and used it as an equipment store.

In the early 1980s it came back briefly as a rock venue called Fair Deal, opened with a concert by UB40. The Clash played it on 30 July 1982 on their Casbah Club tour, but the venue closed later that year because of debt.

Sold for a pound

In 1983, Simon Parkes bought the building for £1 and reopened it as the Brixton Academy. Through the 1980s it built its name on reggae nights, and big acts hired it to rehearse in: the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits and the Police all used it. Parkes later told the story in a book, Live at the Brixton Academy: A Riotous Life in the Music Business, published in 2014.

Parkes sold it in 1995. The new owners spent £500,000 restoring the Art Deco frontage and raised the capacity to just under 5,000. Since 2004 it has been run by the Academy Music Group, and the name has followed the sponsors: Carling Academy Brixton from 2004, then O2 Academy Brixton after O2 bought the naming rights in 2008 for £25.5 million.

The nights that made it

1. 12 Dec 1986
   The Smiths play their last ever concert, an anti-apartheid benefit moved to Brixton from the Royal Albert Hall after Johnny Marr was in a car accident.
2. 1990
   AC/DC film the video for "Thunderstruck" at the Academy.
3. 3 Feb 1996
   Ramones play their final European show here.
4. June 1996
   Leftfield's sound system shakes dust and plaster from the ceiling. They return in 2000 with a different system.
5. 2000
   Madonna plays a special show to launch Music. Broadcast live online, it's watched by a record-breaking audience of 9 million.
6. 28 Mar 2005
   Queen + Paul Rodgers play their first UK show here.
7. March 2017
   The xx play seven nights in a row, the longest run of sold-out shows in the venue's history and the first music act to reach seven.

It has hosted more than 50 live albums, from Faith No More's You Fat Bastards: Live at the Brixton Academy to Motörhead, Dido, Kasabian, Babymetal and New Order. And it has been voted venue of the year 12 times since 1994 at the NME Awards.

Filmed at Brixton

The old cinema has been a film set as often as a concert hall. Wham! shot the video for "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" there. In 1986 Culture Club filmed "Move Away", with the band racing cars across the venue's former cinema screen. In 1987 the Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield made the video for "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" there, and in 1990 AC/DC filmed "Thunderstruck".

Its live albums run from Faith No More and Motörhead's 25 & Alive Boneshaker to Sepultura's Under a Pale Grey Sky, the last concert with founding singer Max Cavalera.

The residency record

Playing Brixton for several nights in a row is a statement. In 2002 Iron Maiden played three consecutive nights for the charity event Clive Aid and set the venue's record for merchandise and ticket sales. The Mighty Boosh, a comedy act, broke it in 2008 with seven consecutive nights of their live show. In March 2017 The xx matched those seven nights, the first music act to do it.

In June 2025, LCD Soundsystem went further in total, with eight shows over two four-night runs.

December 2022

On 15 December 2022, during a performance by Asake, a crowd crush outside the doors seriously injured four people. Two of them died in the following days: Rebecca Ikumelo, 33, who had come to the concert, and Gaby Hutchinson, 23, who was working as a security guard.

Lambeth Council suspended the venue's licence a week later, citing risks to public safety from a lack of crowd control at the front doors, and extended the suspension in January 2023. The Metropolitan Police later said it had no confidence in the licence holder. In September 2023 the council allowed the Academy to reopen, on conditions including strengthened doors, a new security contractor and additional safety procedures.

The Academy reopened on 19 April 2024, sixteen months after the crush and ninety-five years after the Astoria showed its first film. It remains one of the biggest non-arena music venues in London, and its safety is still watched closely: in March 2026 the singer Sombr stopped a show to alert security staff to a fan who had fainted, and publicly criticised how the venue was run.