Ed O'Brien on BBC Radio 6

Two nights out in Camden during the making of The Bends have stayed with Ed O'Brien, who talks to Matt Everitt for Independent Venue Week. The first was upstairs at the Garage, watching Jeff Buckley play solo with Chrissie Hynde in the room. Thom Yorke sang “Fake Plastic Trees” the following day.

On a night off with John Leckie they went to Dingwalls to see the Hammond organist Jimmy Smith, arrived late, and ended up near the front. Smith was playing with a much younger band, and O'Brien remembers with delight the grief handed to the young saxophone player, who was playing beautifully but not, in Smith's estimation, correctly.

A good venue, he says, is about care more than acoustics. Playing somewhere beautiful and well looked after raises a band's game, and in a room with history the walls hold what has happened there, which lifts an evening more than it intimidates.