Opened 1990s | ||
Location Brixton, London, England | ||
The Windmill is a pub and live music venue in Brixton, London, England, with a reputation for championing new music.
The pub was built in 1971 for the adjacent Blenheim Gardens housing estate and named after the neighbouring heritage site of the only lasting (and working) windmill (aka Ashby's Mill) in the London area. It went through various phases of being a bar that attracted locals, bikers, the Irish community and by the end of the 1990s it was hosting DJs, poets and the occasional live bands. Around 2002 the Windmill shifted focus onto live music. Early gigs included a semi-secret double bill of Calexico and Kurt Wagner (of Lambchop) followed by a gig by The 5678s, just after they had appeared as the house band in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 2. A Rottweiler dog living on the roof of the venue (known as "Roof Dog") became the Windmill's mascot, until its death in August 2015.
The Windmill was voted the third best music venue in London, in a 2012 poll in Time Out magazine, and #7 by The Guardian in 2008, and has been described as "one of the top-10 music venues in the U.K.".
Well-known bands to have played gigs at The Windmill include: …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, The Acorn, Akron/Family, Archie Bronson Outfit, Architecture In Helsinki, Art Brut, The Answer, Biffy Clyro, The Black Lips, Bloc Party, Brakes, British Sea Power, Broken Family Band, Caitlin Rose, Calexico, The Cribs, Crystal Stilts, The Crimea, Damo Suzuki, Dananananaykroyd, Daniel Johnston, DJ Scotch Egg, Dub Trio, Duke Special, Duke Spirit, The Enemy, Example, Florence & The Machine, Frank Turner, Frightened Rabbit, Fuck Buttons, Guillemots, Hard-Fi, Herman Dune, Hot Chip, The Horrors, Jamie T, Jeffrey Lewis, Just Jack, Karkwa, The King Blues, Klaxons, Let's Wrestle, Los Campesinos,Lucero, The Magic Numbers, Maximo Park, Mekons, Metronomy, Micachu, Noah & The Whale, OK Go, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Peggy Sue, Pete & the Pirates, Plan B, PW Long, The Rakes, The Rumble Strips, Scouting For Girls, Scritti Politti, Shonen Knife, Stereolab, Television Personalities, Thunderclap Newman, Tilly & The Wall, Tom McRae, Tom Vek, The Vaccines, Vic Godard and Subway Sect, The Veils, The View, Vivian Girls, The War on Drugs, William Elliott Whitmore, The Wombats, Yeasayer, Yngve & The Innocent, The Young Knives.