Reportedly Guildford’s longest-running live music venue, The Star Inn on Quarry Street was the venue for The Stranglers first ever gig on 21 December 1974. Jet Black is reported as saying of the gig “The audience were expecting a folk band, and when they saw us, they were a bit shocked.”

The Star Inn (far right) in the Mid-80’s. Picture by Tony Ford, here courtesy of Bens Collectors Records

In the 70s/80s there was a folk club in the Star, with the likes of Mr Fox and Finbar Furey on the bill. This Friday night folk club was organized by Mark and Margaret Berry. If November ’70 was a typical month: with the Grehan-Matthews Folk Group, Ian Campbell Folk Group- one of the most popular and respected folk groups of the British folk revival of the 60s, and Bob Davenport – a leading and influential in the same revival, who recorded with Chumbawumba in 2004, on the roster it was ‘rocking’, acoustically. On 14 March ’75, the Midlands based theatre group, that dramatized folk songs with shadow puppets, Magic Lantern, played at the Friday night folk club. Local musician Sev Lewkowicz, along with Richard Ashworth, played electric guitar and Neil Young covers at the Star Folk Club – the traditionalists were not ready; although no members of the audience shouted “Judas!” at Lewkowicz or Ashworth, as had happened at the oft cited Bob Dylan gig in Manchester years earlier. Ian Anderson ran the folk club for a while, becoming more contemporary. He would bring acts over from the US to do tours and you could have caught Kate and Anna McGarrigle – who’d appear years later at the Guildford Folk Festival in Stoke Park on 3 August ’97, and Isaac Guillory at The Star.

Front of Mick Stone’s The Star Blues Jazz club membership card from 1974. Picture courtesy Bens Collectors Records

The Bottleneck Club ran out of The Star around ’74, focusing on R&B and progressive rock, with the likes of Zzebra, Kokomo, Asylum, and Marvelous Kid on the roster; and the aforementioned Stranglers. There was also a Blues / Jazz club and a Rock ‘N’ Roll Club too that ran from the late 70’s to the early 80’s – The latter may have been responsible for Shakin’ Stevens & the Sunsets and The Wild Horses appearing there one night in the early ’70s. Keith Jones ran a music club out of The Star in the 70’s’ and recalls turning Bad Company down because they wanted £80! 1979, when The Star was managed by Pete Alexander, saw the Superstar Club host Jackie Lynton’s HD Band on 17 March and The Volunteers on 24 March, a gig described by Tom O’Brain in the Barbed Wire fanzine as “a treat to the ears”.

The Star’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Club nights were rockin’…this ticket is from 17 October 1980. Picture courtesy of Bens Collectors Records

The early ’80s saw more local bands, such as Basic Essentials and The Sleep, on the stage. Towards the end of 1980, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Club held at The Star booked Jack Scott – not the High School Musical character but the predominantly early ’60s Canadian-American singer and songwriter, who in May ’77 recorded a Peel session – backed by The Cruisers on the evening on 17 October ’80. The Flying Tigers, supported by Germination, performed there on 30 March ’89 for Klub Kinney. Sammy Rat’s Big Big Blues Band appeared at The Star twice, following their reformation in the early ’00s, with The True Deceivers.

The backroom – which was built as a function room in the 1840s and originally called the Court Room, as the meeting room of the Guildford Castle Court of the Ancient Order of Foresters – is still hosting live music to this day. This is despite pressure from a local property developer, Neil Young, who’d converted a former office building backing onto the venue into four flats and Guildford Borough Council serving the establishment with a noise abatement notice in 2018. The venue fought back with the help of customers, community, bands, and the Music Venue Trust. On 31 January 2019, The Stranglers presented The Star with the PRS for Music Heritage Award and performed once more in The Backroom.

Gallery:

The Star. Picture courtesy of Bens Collectors Records
Page 14 from Orbit (possibly November issue) 1970. Source: Paul Pickett via Guildford Town Past & Present
Back of Mick Stone’s The Star Blues Jazz club membership card. Picture courtesy Bens Collectors Records
14 March 1975: Magic Lantern played at the Friday night folk club organized by Mark and Margaret Berry at The Star, Guildford. Picture courtesy of Bens Collectors Records
Soho at The Star, Guildford, c’78/’79. Picture by and courtesy of Fred Pipes
Soho at The Star, Guildford, c’78/’79. Picture by and courtesy of Fred Pipes
Gig Review of The Volunteers at The Star Inn, Guildford from Barbed Wire Vol 2 No.2, May 1979. Picture courtesy of Fred
Basic Essentials at The Star, Guildford 1980. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
Basic Essentials at The Star, Guildford 1980. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
Basic Essentials at The Star, Guildford 1980. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
Basic Essentials at The Star, Guildford 1980. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
Basic Essentials at The Star, Guildford 1980. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
The Star, Guildford, on the right of Quarry Street, in 1980. Photograph by Tony Ford courtesy of Bens Collectors Records
The Sleep at The Star, August or September 1981. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
The Sleep at The Star, August or September 1981. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
The Sleep at The Star, August or September 1981. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
The Sleep at The Star, August or September 1981. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
The Sleep at The Star, August or September 1981. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
The Sleep at The Star, August or September 1981. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
The Sleep at The Star, August or September 1981. Picture courtesy of Fred Pipes
The Flying Tigers – “Tygers” was a spelling mistake by the organizers – played The Star in 1989