The Whole Story of The Kinema Ballroom Dunfermline
                                   (and Cinemas of Dunfermline & Rosyth)
 

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Stuart Adamson RIP

"The Extraordinary KinemaGigz Website" - Tom Morton (BBC Radio Broadcaster & Author)

           
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"Ghoulz, ... My memories of the Kinema are of great importance to me. It's where we supported the Clash. It was also the place we most looked forward to playing in the early days and dreamed of headlining, which we did on many occasions. The first time we played was an amazing experience, sold out, buses coming from all over Fife - a truly incredible night for me, a 17 year old local boy and I'm sure for the rest of the band. These were the happiest times for us, before we changed and slowly pulled apart. Congratulations on the site".

Richard Jobson (The Skids)

Launched on 14th September 2006 after 11 months graft and still a live 'work in progress', KinemaGigz aspires to help give The Kinema Ballroom in the historic City of Dunfermline the recognition it deserves as one of the more important venues in the history of live music performance in Scotland.

"Important?" I hear you say - Just take a look at some comparative statistics for Glasgow's Green's Playhouse/Apollo against The Kinema Ballroom.

    No of acts:   Green's Playhouse/Apollo -    686        Kinema -   1,100  (1.6 times more)
    No of gigs:   Green's Playhouse/Apollo - 1,439        Kinema - 10,000  (6 times more)
No gig years:   Green's Playhouse/Apollo -      19        Kinema -        42  (twice more) 

The ballroom was never even in the same league as the Apollo, however I reckon it's importance has been overlooked.

It has been known variously as 'The Kinema Ballroom', 'Night Magic', 'Hollywood Boulevard', 'The Ballroom' and since December 2007, 'Velocity'. Generally I will refer to it simply as 'the ballroom'.

The following pages contain the only known record of every live music performance in the ballroom from its opening night in 1938 to the present day, together with artist biographies, photographs and recollections from the people that were there.  Were you?

I believe I've nailed almost all of the 10,000 dates and 1,100 acts spread over 68 years! (and counting).  I've written around half of almost 700 biographies that I've listed so far, and reproduced the rest with permission. There's still about 400 to find & with your help I believe many will be found. Additions and improvements are appearing frequently, so check out my 'Wot's New' page from time to time. (I recommend you bookmark this page for future reference).

Pop, Jazz, Big Band, Rock, Gospel, Soul, Punk, Folk, Dance, Swing, New Wave, Heavy Metal, Mod, Ska, Electronic, Reggae, Blues, Country, Rock 'n' Roll, Progressive, Funk, New Romantic, Disco, it's all here.

Matt Monro, Elton John, Cliff Richard, David Bowie, Cream, Billy Connolly, Acker Bilk, N-Trance, The Damned, Atomic Kitten, Thin Lizzy, Boney M, Bucks Fizz, The Dubliners, The Who, Rolf Harris, The Skids of course and hundreds of others some of which neither you nor I have even heard of! They've all played the ballroom!

If you're interested in who built this site and why, there's a piece about me and why / how I built the site here.

Contents: (or how to push all the right buttons)

How you can help:

In publishing this web site, I'm sharing my research and knowledge with you.
I hope you enjoy it and that you'll come back soon to check for additions, changes and improvements.

Do you know something that'll make it better?  Read on ...

Information:
If you can add any information to the list or think any of the data presented here is inaccurate, please contact me using the Feedback form and share it.  I'll then try to include it, especially if you have some 'hard evidence' such as ticket stubs etc that you could scan and send to me at my email address.

Images:
I'd love to include any photographs of the ballroom (inside or out but especially bands on stage) and scans of ticket stubs or newspaper articles etc. so please consider offering them to me for publication here. (Send files or scans to me using my email address).

Memories:
If you have particular memories of the ballroom and would like to share them, contact me using my Feedback form.
Be sure to indicate if you wish them to be published here and whether you wish to remain anonymous!

Opinions:
Press the Feedback button and 'let me have it!'

Thanks for your interest, ... I sincerely hope you enjoy the site as much as I am still enjoying researching and improving it.

Donations

KinemaGigz is a personally funded labour of love which receives no commercial financial support at all.
If you have enjoyed your visit & would like to make a donation to the cost of it's upkeep, click the button below.

Thank you very much,
Ghoulz.

© Copyright Information

The Intellectual Property Rights of this website and the original materials on it belong to Colin WK Gourlay. This website and the materials on it and the Intellectual Property Rights therein may not be copied, distributed, published, licensed, used or reproduced in any way (save to the extent strictly necessary for, and for the purposes of, accessing and using this website) without Colin WK Gourlay's written consent.

Material reproduced from other websites is clearly indicated as such and therefore permission to reproduce must be sought from the appropriate webmaster.

hits since launch on 14th September 2006
© Copyright Colin WK Gourlay 2006, 2007, 2008
All Rights Reserved