Popcenter, The Legendary Rock Store
The story of Popcenter starts with Jacques travelling from Belgium to London in the early 70's with two suitcases and a backpack to buy records from small distributors in the UK and Germany. These are…
Popcenter, The Legendary Rock Store
The story of Popcenter starts with Jacques travelling from Belgium to London in the early 70's with two suitcases and a backpack to buy records from small distributors in the UK and Germany. These are the times of Krautrock and Mike Oldfield Tubular bells. Popcenter started as a record shop but quickly became the driving force for organising concerts in the Flanders area of Belgium for early AC/DC, Hawkwind, Ian Gillan, Rush and Kiss concerts. Some bands playing for a select crowd of no more than 300 people. The first Iron Maiden concert outside of the UK was organised by Jacques in Kortrijk. Personal friendships were established with young bands such as Budgie and Rory Gallagher when they played in a local venue in the early 70's and were hosted at Jacques and Bernadette's home. This documentary showcases the gratitude of some of these bands as they acknowledge the importance of record stores such as Popcenter in selling tickets for their concerts in their early career. The documentary features one of last interviews by deceased John Hiseman, driving force behind Colosseum, while recording the JCM album featuring Clem Clempson and Mark Clarke. The struggle of survival of Popcenter against the impact of illegal downloads and streaming internet services is reviewed against the original concept of enabling music downloads by the OD2 On Demand Distribution Service created by Peter Gabriel in 1999. The interview features a few loyal customers that during the 42 years of Popcenter's existence created music collections of more than 15.000 albums. The customers talk about Jacques' 'sixth sense' in knowing exactly what a customer's musical taste is and what he should listen to. Popcenter was not just a record store, it was a place of passion and were friendships for life were born. Popcenter closed on April 28, 2018. It will be truly missed. The very sad end of a beautiful era.
Popcenter, The Legendary Rock Store
Documentary
Film Details
The story of Popcenter starts with Jacques travelling from Belgium to London in the early 70's with two suitcases and a backpack to buy records from small distributors in the UK and Germany. These are the times of Krautrock and Mike Oldfield Tubular bells. Popcenter started as a record shop but quickly became the driving force for organising concerts in the Flanders area of Belgium for early AC/DC, Hawkwind, Ian Gillan, Rush and Kiss concerts.
Some bands playing for a select crowd of no more than 300 people. The first Iron Maiden concert outside of the UK was organised by Jacques in Kortrijk. Personal friendships were established with young bands such as Budgie and Rory Gallagher when they played in a local venue in the early 70's and were hosted at Jacques and Bernadette's home.
This documentary showcases the gratitude of some of these bands as they acknowledge the importance of record stores such as Popcenter in selling tickets for their concerts in their early career. The documentary features one of last interviews by deceased John Hiseman, driving force behind Colosseum, while recording the JCM album featuring Clem Clempson and Mark Clarke. The struggle of survival of Popcenter against the impact of illegal downloads and streaming internet services is reviewed against the original concept of enabling music downloads by the OD2 On Demand Distribution Service created by Peter Gabriel in 1999.
The interview features a few loyal customers that during the 42 years of Popcenter's existence created music collections of more than 15.000 albums. The customers talk about Jacques' 'sixth sense' in knowing exactly what a customer's musical taste is and what he should listen to. Popcenter was not just a record store, it was a place of passion and were friendships for life were born.
Popcenter closed on April 28, 2018. It will be truly missed. The very sad end of a beautiful era..