The Kinema Ballroom brought some of music’s biggest stars to Dunfermline.
The list of top acts reads like a who’s who of popular music.
Here was a nightspot so cool it once turned down The Beatles!
So let’s take a journey back in time and chart the rise and fall of the legendary Dunfermline venue that put Fife on the music map.
Daniel Younger opened the Kinema moving picture salon in Dunfermline in 1915, before building a new ballroom 23 years later to provide further entertainment.
The purpose-built Kinema Ballroom sprung up adjacent to the town’s cinema and original design features included a state-of-the-art sprung dance floor.
Provost James Hoggan opened the venue on December 23 1938 and the entrance door at Pilmuir Street and exit to Chapel Street Lane still exist today.
The Dancer’s Mecca
The “Grand Opening Carnival Dance” costing two shillings and sixpence took place from 8pm until 1.30am with Ernest Dobbie and his Swingtette providing the music.
The opening carnival dance was attended by a large crowd of revellers and it quickly became the place to be for all of Fife’s trendiest people!
It was being advertised in its slogans as being ‘The Dancer’s Mecca’; ‘The Rendezvous Of All Discerning Dancers’; and ‘Fifeshire’s Super Dance Hall’.
The dancing was brought to a close during the Second World War, when it was used to billet soldiers from some Scottish regiments from 1939 to 1941.
It reopened and entered an exciting new phase of its life by hosting various talent contests and beauty shows alongside its regular dancing.
The Kinema had a long-standing rivalry with St Margaret’s Hall, which was eventually gutted by fire following a boxing match in the venue in 1961.
Business increased substantially following the closure of St Margaret’s and the Kinema dance floor ended up being replaced after being worn out by the footfall!
A new dance floor was laid on January 22 1962 but soon its newfound popularity saw the Kinema outgrow itself, with an extension approved in 1963.
The extension saw it become Fife’s most prominent music venue and increased its capacity four-fold to more than 1,000 patrons at a cost of £31,000.
The new-look venue opened on Monday November 30 1964 and the Kinema has had some of pop and rock’s biggest names grace its stage over the decades.
These include the likes of David Bowie, Elton John, The Clash and Iron Maiden, who were just an emerging band when they played in 1980.
Promoter Andi Lothian heard the early demo of Bowie’s Space Oddity in 1969 and put together a package to bring Bowie to Scotland for a week-long tour.
He said: “Much of the reminiscing around David Bowie’s Scottish appearances wrongly attribute his first performances north of the border around the early 1970s.
“However, as a promoter of dances and concerts at the time, I arranged what I believe to be David Bowie’s first Scottish appearances under his Bowie brand name.
“In late 1969, venues were booked for Dundee, Stirling, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, anticipating that Space Oddity would be more successful than it proved to be.
“The lack of ticket sales for the planned concerts resulted in cancellations of most of the dates and change of venues from concerts to dances.
“Bowie ultimately appeared in November 1969 at dances in Perth, the Dundee Palais Top Ten Club, Dunfermline’s Kinema Ballroom, and a couple of other venues.”
The Kinema’s gigography also includes The Who playing four times between 1965 and 1969, while Cream performed in 1967 with Eric Clapton on lead guitar.
Other performers on the main stage included Big Country, Boy George, Elvis Costello, the Hollies, Madness, Mott the Hoople, Cliff Richard and Cat Stevens.
Not too shabby for a nightspot in Dunfermline!
But what about the one that got away?
One of the nightclub’s former managers, Cecil R Hunter, turned down a booking for an up-and-coming Liverpudlian band called The Beatles!
The Kinema was also the backdrop to the separation of The Humblebums, a folk rock band featuring Billy Connolly, Tam Harvey and Gerry Rafferty.
Connolly co-founded the band with Tam Harvey in 1965 before Rafferty joined in 1969 and they made their way as a musical trio for around a year.
Billy Connolly walked away
Rafferty insisted that three into two wouldn’t go and it led to a rancorous parting of the ways with Harvey being given the sack during the Kinema gig in 1970.
Connolly said: “One of the hardest things I ever had to do was tell Tam it was over.
“It was in the Kinema Ballroom in Dunfermline.”
Thereafter, Connolly and Rafferty’s paths soon diverged.
One became an international comedy star and the other a successful singer-songwriter with records such as Baker Street, Night Owl and Right Down The Line.
The Kinema Ballroom closed its doors on Saturday September 20 1980 for four and a half weeks and emerged again under its new name of Night Magic.
Night Magic was opened by Daniel Younger’s grandson, John Brewster, following a decline in live music and the renovations cost a whopping £250,000.
Dunfermline was now among the disco capitals of the world!
The £2 tickets for the opening night were changing hands for 10 times face value with some people being offered £25 to give up their gold-dust brief.
Such was the desperation to see it all kick-off with top international DJ Abi King (who wore a specially made space suit) and London go-go dance team A Touch of Class.
The Kinema later became Hollywood Boulevard in 1988 and despite then scooping Scotland’s Disco of the Year award it closed a year later.
The nightclub later rebranded as Velocity before closing again in 2009.
There were concerns the old ballroom would be left to become dilapidated but it opened its doors again in 2018 as a restaurant serving buffet-style global dishes, though the pandemic forced it to close.
The next verse in the song of its life may still be unwritten but the beloved venue lives on in the minds of all the famous musicians who once cut their teeth on its stage.
More like this:
David Bowie played to a half-empty venue in Kirkcaldy on the day Space Oddity was released
How Sir Billy Connolly helped Dundee Rep Theatre reopen its doors 40 years ago
Were you at the Arbroath folk club where Billy Connolly and Gerry Rafferty performed for £28?
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