Angels was a nightclub

Nightclub

A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

 and music venue

Music venue

A music venue is any location used for a concert or musical performance. Music venues range in size and location, from an outdoor bandshell or bandstand or a concert hall to an indoor sports stadium. Typically, different types of venues host different genres of music...

 in Burnley

Burnley

Burnley is a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire, England, with a population of around 73,500. It lies north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It became most famous during the early 1990s with the rise of the house music

House music

House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...

 scene, drawing visitors from across the country. It occupied part of a Multi-storey car park

Multi-storey car park

A multi-storey car-park is a building designed specifically to be for car parking and where there are a number of floors or levels on which parking takes place...

 on Curzon St (Currently the site of another car park and Wilkinson store).

Carl Cox

Carl Cox

Carl Cox is a British techno and house music DJ.-Biography:Cox grew up in Oldham, Lancashire, before attending Glastonbury High Boys secondary modern school on Glastonbury Road in Morden. Cox began his career as a hardcore and rave DJ in the mid 1980s...

, Paul Oakenfold

Paul Oakenfold

Paul Mark Oakenfold is a British record producer and a trance DJ.-Early Career: 1979–84:Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band. He describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" in a podcasted interview with Vancouver's 24 Hours, stating he grew...

, Pete Tong

Pete Tong

Peter "Pete" Tong is an English DJ who works for BBC Radio 1. He is known worldwide by fans of electronic music for hosting programmes such as Essential Mix and Essential Selection on the radio service, which can be heard through Internet radio streams, for his record label FFRR Records, and for...

, Sasha

Sasha (DJ)

Sasha is a Welsh DJ and record producer. Sasha began his career playing acid house dance music in the late 1980s...

, Judge Jules

Judge Jules

Judge Jules is a British dance music DJ and producer, known for his DJ activities and popular radio show which achieved global success.-Education:...

, all regularly DJ'd

There were also memorable appearances from Boy George

Boy George

Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...

 and Nigel Benn

Nigel Benn

Nigel Benn , known as "The Dark Destroyer", is a British former boxer who held world titles in the middleweight and super middleweight divisions....

Anne Savage

Anne Savage (DJ)

Anne Savage is a UK hard dance DJ.-Early life:Savage was born in Burnley, Lancashire and raised in the Ribble Valley. She attended, the private Westholme School. She took classical guitar lessons at an early age. In the late 1980s she played guitar in a punk band called 53rd State.-Career:Savage...

 had her 1st UK residency at Angels.

DJ Paul Taylor

Paul Taylor (DJ)

Paul Taylor is a British techno and house DJ, whose career began in 1974.-Early life:Paul was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, moving to Burnley, Lancashire at the age of 13 where he attended Burnley Grammar School, and later Blackpool College studying Graphic design.-Angels:Paul got offered his first...

 held a long residency and started his Retro brand of club night at the club.

Paul Taylor Interview (Retro) on YouTube

June 1974 saw the official opening of Angels by TVs Pan's People

Pan's People

Pan's People were a British TV dance troupe, who are usually associated with the BBC TV music chart show Top of the Pops.In an era before pop videos, they danced to songs whose original artists were not available to perform them live...

 and the town's mayor.

In 1992 the first episode of the long running late night dance music show BPM featured footage from Angels in Burnley with Dave Seaman

Dave Seaman

Dave Seaman is a British dance music DJ and record producer. He was formerly a member of the DMC Publishing, and editor of music magazine Mixmag. He formed one half of Brothers In Rhythm with Steve Anderson, doing production work for Pet Shop Boys and Kylie Minogue. He has since founded Audio...

 DJing. (Footage can be found on YouTube)

When Pete Waterman

Pete Waterman

Peter Alan Waterman OBE is an English record producer, occasional songwriter, radio and club DJ, television presenter, president of Coventry Bears rugby league club and a keen railway enthusiast. As a member of the Stock Aitken Waterman songwriting team he wrote and produced many hit singles...

 visited Angels in 1994 to scout for his TV show The Hit Man and Her, he received so much hassle from the clubgoers that he changed his mind.

Even at the height of its fame, Angels days were numbered. Despite being just over 20 years old, the car park (that the building was part of) had developed serious structural defects (See: Concrete cancer

Concrete cancer

Concrete cancer is a colloquial name for the deterioration of concrete caused by the presence of contaminants or the action of weather combined with atmospheric properties. While often used in the context of the rusting of concrete reinforcement bar , the term can equally be applied to any number...

). The land owners Great Portland Estates

Great Portland Estates

Great Portland Estates plc is a British property development and investment company. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index...

 and Burnley

Burnley

Burnley is a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire, England, with a population of around 73,500. It lies north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun....

 council, decided that demolition and redevelopment of the area was the most economically viable solution.

The last night at Angels was on 27 April 1996???

Faced with eviction, the club’s owners decided to start a new improved venue on the opposite side of the town centre. Extensive work was untaken to convert a former church into a nightclub intended to rival Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

’s Nation (the home of Cream)

Cream (nightclub)

Cream, based at the Nation nightclub in Liverpool, is one of the best-known night clubs in the UK. Cream began life as a weekly house music night at Nation, and ran in this format for 10 years, from October 1992 to June 2002...

, opening in May 1996 as XPO . This however proved to be disastrous and the receivers

Receivership

In law, receivership is the situation in which an institution or enterprise is being held by a receiver, a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights." The receivership remedy is an equitable remedy that emerged in...

had to be called in by February 1997 .

The original club reopened briefly under the name Heaven due to a delay in demolishing the building.