iggy pop, depeche mode and simple minds played an old bingo hall in prosperidad. this is the club that held the movida.
before rock-ola there were two smaller rooms. in 1979 lorenzo rodríguez, a young guy from úbeda, started putting on the new bands at el jardín. in 1980 he moved them to the marquee, near avenida de américa. both filled up fast.
next door to the marquee was a bingo hall, much bigger, with the same owner, jorge gonzález. it became rock-ola. it opened on 31 march 1981 with a record launch party, and the first gig was the uk punk band u.k. subs, on 3 and 4 april. a week later rubi y los casinos played, the first spanish band on its stage.
it sat at calle padre xifré 5, in the prosperidad neighbourhood, right across the road from torres blancas. the nearest metro was cartagena.
a small team ran it. lorenzo was the director. mario armero, who had a radio show on onda 2, brought in the bands from abroad. pepo perandones played records and drew the posters, and his brother magín ran the dj booth. pepe peral was on the door.
it opened every day of the year: a gig first, then dancing until late. punks, mods, new romantics and everyone in between ended up at the same bar. pedro almodóvar was a regular, and so were the photographers and painters of the movida.
the bands from abroad came early, before they got too big for a room like this. iggy pop played in june 1981, spandau ballet in july, simple minds in december. depeche mode came in march 1982, siouxsie and the banshees that october. later came the stranglers, the cramps, new order and nick cave. many of them chose its low stage, with the crowd right there, over a sports hall.
the spanish side was all there too: alaska, nacha pop, radio futura, parálisis permanente, gabinete caligari, los secretos and many more. siniestro total even put it in a song: "i want to be alaska, always be in ¡hola!, play at rock-ola."
when spandau ballet played, it sold out and there was no air conditioning. lorenzo remembers everyone nearly dying of the heat. people who were there say the ink ran off the bottle labels.
things got harder after december 1983, when a fire at another club, alcalá 20, killed more than eighty people. inspections came down hard on every room in madrid. in november 1984 a fire in rock-ola's basement destroyed furniture, equipment and files, and a closure order followed. the club stayed open. by then lorenzo and the perandones brothers had moved on, and the movida itself was fading.
on 10 march 1985 a fight between mods and rockers at the door ended with a young man dead. a few days later the city sealed the club for good. the last gig was bajas pasiones on 15 march. los nikis, eskorbuto and the bluebells were already on the posters for later that month.
the room became a car repair shop, and today the door leads to storage units. 47 of its posters are kept at the reina sofía museum, collected by lorenzo himself.
in october 2016 pepo and magín perandones opened a new rock-ola at calle josé abascal 8, with gigs by 80s bands, tribute nights and pop and rock dj sessions. we found no sign of it after 2018. in 2021, forty years after the first gig, úbeda held an exhibition about lorenzo and the club, and it later went to barcelona.
