It's been a slow, painful, undignified death. Two weeks ago, Eric's end was just a rumour. Now it's gone, without even a proper farewell, leaving an empty space. Can any of those responsible understand how much the club meant?
Eric's was necessary. Of course you can still see groups in Liverpool, though now it's a choice between youth club groups and 'Top of the Pops' groups, with nothing in between. But the loss goes further than wondering what to do on Saturday nights.
Eric's was the rock'n'roll heart of the city, a living centre in a world where all other entertainment is shallow and plastic. Eric's reached the parts other clubs didn't even know existed.
You could enter Eric's and feel at home, whatever you looked like. It was a place to escape, belong, to be yourself. And it was the nearest thing you could get to putting a location on rock'n'roll.
Rock'n'roll was a welcoming noise that met you as you descended the stairs to the club. It was standing halfway between the bar and the stage, one ear taking in the classics of yesterday from a juke box that educated and entertained, the other the classics of tomorrow.
It was movement and heat and noise, like the first time I saw the Clash on that stage. It was anyone getting up there and playing. Like Jayne bald and screaming in the early days of Big In Japan. It's nothing to do with 'Top of the Pops' or 'The Old Grey Whistle Test', or records on the radio, or two hours sitting watching a 'show' at Liverpool Empire.
Pictures of Eric's: the most glorious gig of this year, Lux Interior, clad only in a pair of red underpants, falling through the audience and onto the ground while the rest of the Cramps just keep on playing. Then up again, wrenching light fittings from the ceiling, pulling down handfuls of roof until I thought there'd be no club left to close down. What a way to go…
Everyone played their best at Eric's. 'If I gave marks out of ten for towns, then Liverpool would get 13,' said Lux Interior.
Another picture: the saddest gig of the year. The last night, but nobody knows it yet. Everyone's here, just in case. Friends, rivals, cliques, incipient stars who first began on that stage. 'God save Eric's' scrawled on a table. Wah Heat announce, 'We're the last Liverpool band to play Eric's,' and we try not to believe it. The Psychedelic Furs play, their sombre music fitting the mood.
Cut to two police vans screeching across the empty car park that was once the Cavern. Magnificent irony. Cut to inside the club. While people are being searched and generally degraded, Wah Heat play 'I Fought The Law'.
Last picture. A day later. It would have been the 54th birthday of Jimmy Kelly, the Liverpool man who died in police custody. Mathew Street looks depressing, the daylight illuminating brick walls and empty spaces. Outside the club, spiky uniforms gather, waiting to begin the protest march. An old man stands muttering: he fought the war for us. Police everywhere, surrounding us, making us the criminals.
But the march is a moment of glory, a statement. The citizens of Liverpool don't like the sight. They'd like to sweep us under the carpet, but they've taken the carpet away.
Whatever happens now, something's lost forever. We can only hope that with every ending comes a beginning. Or just think of the new graffiti outside the club: 'The spirit lives on'.
Penny Kiley - Melody Maker, March 1980
Jo-Ann Greene - Dead or Alive