No Port in a storm

It seems as though I may have been too busy lamenting the loss of two cornerstones of the music scenes in Nottingham and Cardiff to notice what appears to be the sad demise of a venue on my very doorstep.

I read in Nightshift a while back that the Port Mahon on St Clements St was undergoing a change of management, but it actually seems to have shut altogether. It was the place that Permanent Vacation and Poor Girl Noise, local promoters of all things raucous and leftfield, pretty much used to call home. I must confess to having never been - my excuse is that their gigs were usually on Saturdays, when I was nearly always away from Oxford, but it's still rather shameful.

Also rumoured to be in big trouble is The Regal. The Isis gig in December was switched to the Academy (the O2 Academy rather than the Carling Academy, since New Year's Day), and PJ Harvey's gig with John Parrish to promote the pair's new album A Woman A Man Walked By has also been moved, in this case to Oxford Brookes Students' Union. I had high hopes for the Regal, as did a lot of people, but given the grim experience of November's Don Caballero gig, I can't say I'd actually be disappointed to see it go.