Bohemian Night

Bohemian Night is a weekly open mic night in Reading, Berkshire, England.

It was founded in August 1997 by Rob Sowden, and was initially held on Thursday nights in the Pangaea Bar in the RISC centre on London Street.

The inaugural event was in fact not an open mic night, but a gig by Pressgang.

From the start, the ethos was that "anybody", whatever their level of talent, would be able to get up and perform, with no interference from the management. As a consequence, quite a few acts that were of uncertain quality were given the opportunity to hone their skills who might otherwise not have been able to get a start on the performance circuit.

The earliest events tended to be unstructured affairs, whereby the regulars would feel free to join in and jam together. The usual structure was that a performer would perform one or two items, although more accomplished musicians would have extended sets where they would be able to perform a handful of numbers. It was also common for an evening to last well past closing time, sometimes not ending till after 1 a.m.

After about six months, the venue needed to change. The ostensible reason was that the Pangaea Bar was about to undergo a complete refurbishment, but the actual reason may have been because of complaints from the neighbours.

The new venue was Wednesday nights at the Fez & Firkin on London Road, where it stayed for a further year or so. By this time the event was somewhat more structured, as the closing time was as rigorously enforced as any English pub at that time.

At about the end of 1998, a complementary (some would say rival) venue had started up at Po Na Na in Reading's Duke Street. Frequented by some of the same clientele as Bohemian Night, this was along the same free-form that Bohemian Night had started out with. When Bohemian Night left the Fez & Firkin, this then became for a short while the only venue of its kind in the town.

However, all was not lost. Near the beginning of 1999, another similar venue was inaugurated, at Upstairs At Pierre's (upstairs from the Pierre Victoire restaurant in Reading's St.Mary's Butts), which was more based around poetry than music. It did not take long before Bohemian Night was officially moved in, now on Tuesday nights. To many, this was the venue's best period, focusing as it did upon the burgeoning poetry scene in Reading. This was the period during which A.F. Harrold first attended. By this time, Rob Sowden was not the only MC - the honours were shared between himself, Matt Westwood and the Reading rap-poet ttyouth. Again, this venue was such that closing times were not rigorously enforced, and the event was closer to its Bohemian ideals than ever before.

Unfortunately, Pierre Victoire went out of business. This, coupled with the problems that had been encountered in trying to get a public performance licence, caused the venue to be closed in the summer of 1999.

It was not long before the event was once more up and running, this time in the 3 B's bar in Reading Town Hall. It has been running there ever since.

Rob Sowden was still organising it and occasionally MCing, with Matt Westwood, Chris Beales, Preacher John and A.F. Harrold being very much front-of-house. Rob had by this time joined Arena and because of time spent on tour with them, there were extended periods when the event had to continue without him. At around the same time (from Spring 2000), Matt Westwood was also spending quite some time out of the country, and in his absence the MCing reins were taken up by A.F. Harrold on a permanent basis. He has been performing this duty ever since.

In the summer of 2001, Rob Sowden organised for a compilation CD to be recorded: Bohemian Night Volume 1 - the plan was for it to be the first of a series, but this has not yet been happened.