The plug-in hybrid 740e is the ideal limousine for a rock star with an eco-conscience. We take it on tour to North London’s greatest music venues
Words Ben Barry | Venue histories Andrew Male | Photography Charlie Magee
Cars and music go together like Simon and Garfunkel or the Everly Brothers. From songs about cars, to the music that instantly conjures up seminal car ads (does Take My Breath Away say Top Gun to you, or Peugeot?) to those great drives everlasting in your memory, where you can recall the weather, the notch of the gearchange, the sound of the engine and the sag of the seats, all jumbling together with the playlist on that TDK D90 booming from the cassette player.
Tonight another memorable drive is unfurling, one very special for someone like me who ranks music a close second to cars. Sitting alongside is rock writer Andrew Male from Mojo magazine, and though the key stretch of our journey is a smidgen less than a mile long, it covers decades of British rock ‘n’ roll excess.
We’re touring Camden’s landmark music venues and notorious drinking haunts, not in an open-top double-decker bus with a loud hailer for the full Blur Park Life effect, but in something better-suited to the modern rock star: the BMW 740e.
7-series tech: carbonfibre and hybrid drive
The latest 7-series is part of a long line of BMW limousines that – drum roll, please – stretches back to the 1970s. But while this sixth-generation model sticks to the brief with its blend of comfort, responsive dynamics and high technology, the 740e introduces a couple of radical tricks borrowed from the i3 and i8 models.
The first is carbon-core technology, which combines more familiar steel and aluminium construction with carbonfibre in the roof beams, pillars, sills and transmission tunnel. It adds strength and stiffness, and helps save up to 130kg compared with the previous-gen 7-series, despite having extra equipment.
The second innovation is a plug-in hybrid drivetrain, which combines the smallest ever engine fitted to a 7-series – a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol – with an electric motor integrated in the eight-speed transmission. Outputs of a combined 322bhp and 369lb ft are figures you might expect from a turbocharged six, not a small-capacity four.
The official consumption figures are surprising, too: the official test cycle says up to 117.7mpg for this standard wheelbase car and as little as 54g/km CO2. Unlike many rock stars, this thing’s almost teetotal.
While you won’t replicate those figures in daily use, plug in the 740e for up to 27 miles of pure electric driving. Charging its 7.4kWh lithium-ion battery takes less than four hours on a domestic socket, or under three with a BMW i Wallbox. Plug in nightly and you might rarely burn a drop of petrol on a typical urban commute, but you’ll still have the flexibility to use it on longer trips without any range anxiety. You can also use different driving modes to boost the battery on-the-go, complementing the always-active energy recuperation through braking, as our run from CAR’s Peterborough HQ to our sister title Mojo’s offices in Camden demonstrates.
How the 740e feels on the motorway
The 740e peacefully wafts us out of the town that gave us Aston Merrygold from boy-band JLS – not quite a Camden luminary – and down the A1(M) in Auto eDrive. This lets the car best judge how to mix the flow of electric and petrol propulsion. Below 50mph, we’re using electric power alone, including through roadworks. It’s only above that threshold or under heavier acceleration that the internal-combustion engine kicks in with a purposeful growl.
I settle back into the comfortable embrace of the driver’s seat, cruise control on, air suspension smoothing over road-surface imperfections. By the time I get to the southern edge of Cambridge on the M11, the indicated e-range that was 16 miles at the start of the journey has fallen to six, and the trip computer says we’ve covered 11 miles on electric alone – due to some energy being recuperated en route – so I switch from Auto eDrive into Battery Control. This lets the combustion engine charge the battery, and when I collect Andrew, we’re fully charged again, ready for an all-electric tour of Camden.
It’s a part of London that’s etched into Andrew’s memory bank. When he first started out in music journalism in the mid-1990s, Britpop was propelling indie into the mainstream and he found himself mingling with the shakermakers there. Andrew became friends with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann, and recalls Blur frontman Damon Albarn – then Frischmann’s partner and at Blur’s peak with Park Life – making him a particularly insipid cup of tea. Other tales of Camden will prove to be more debauched.
740e gadgets: gesture control and Spotify
First up it’s my chance to play expert, by demonstrating how my phone’s Spotify playlist is synced to the BMW’s iDrive infotainment, and that we can control it with a twist of the rotary dial, a prod of the touchscreen or even gestures – whirling a finger in mid-air raises or lowers the volume courtesy of a 3D sensor mounted near the rear-view mirror.
It’s intimidating to watch a music critic scroll over my favourite tunes, so it’s a relief when we strike common ground – and find some Camden context – with Led Zeppelin.
I press Max eDrive, meaning the 7-series will use electric power alone, even up to speeds as high as 87mph – or until I’m really heavy on the throttle. It’s appropriate too, as we creep silently past a long queue outside the Electric Ballroom.
‘Led Zeppelin used to rehearse here,’ points out Andrew. The Ballroom is on Camden High Street, and crowds are queuing to see actor-and-musician Kiefer Sutherland play his country rock. The fans are surrounded by bustle and colour and noise – but not from the 740e.
As a dawdling Prius pulls over to let us pass, I give a squirt of throttle. On the motorway, the luxurious BMW felt perfectly fast enough, but the kick of low-down torque when you gun for a gap in city traffic adds a new dimension – there’s an instant, effortless burst of energy that’s quite different to internal combustion. It’s in its element in town.
Last orders: the Dublin Castle
Andrew directs us past the Amy Winehouse statue in Camden Stables market and onto the Roundhouse, a former railway engine shed with a turntable of the Thomas the Tank Engine variety. Andrew chuckles that the Roundhouse quickly became redundant when trains grew too long to fit inside, but notes that the venue’s subsequent life has been considerably more glamorous.
360° cameras make our own 180° turnaround far more successful on Adelaide Road – ‘Supernova Heights is up there,’ says Andrew, ‘Noel Gallagher’s old place’ – then we loop back along Camden Road, past a despair of goths and stop at the lights outside Koko, once known as Camden Palace.
But Camden’s rich musical history pre-dates even rock and roll, with its roots in the Irish navvies who worked on the railways. So it seems fitting to finish our tour at the Dublin Castle pub, and we catch the punchy energy of a live rock band, while a trip to the toilets points to Camden’s darker side, with warnings against drug taking and that ‘random patrols are in operation’.
Andrew reckons the days of real Camden debauchery probably ended with the tragic death of Amy Winehouse, aged 27 in 2011. So it seems fitting to finish our tour with a bottle of non-alcoholic beer – not bad these days! – and an emissions-free glide out to the M25 in the 740e.
It’s well past midnight, the streets are empty, and I’ve got the Libertines belting out of the stereo as I accelerate towards that all-electric top speed. All I need now are a couple of Britpop stars in the back and the address for that very big house in the country.
BMW 740e
Engine 1998cc 16v turbo 4-cyl + synchronous electric motor integrated in transmission
Transmission 8-speed auto, rear-wheel drive
Suspension Double wishbone front; multi-link rear, air springs all-round
Made of Steel, aluminium, carbonfibre
Length/width/height 5238/1902/1479mm
CAMDEN'S ROCK 'N' ROLL HOTSPOTS
Mojo magazine's guide to its great music venues
THE GOOD MIXER
30 Inverness Street, NW1 7HJ
Built on a bomb-site in Inverness Street in the 1950s, this two-room Irish bar started life as an unassuming local rough-house for Camden’s labourers, market traders and the homeless ex-servicemen who lodged nearby.
The Good Mixer became a musicians’ hangout in the late ’80s. Promoted by Sting-Rays/Earls Of Suave vocalist Bal Croce, the Mixer became home to members of Gallon Drunk, the Very Things, crime writer Cathi Unsworth, and guitarist Boz Boorer (post-Polecats, pre-Morrissey), all romanced by the rough simplicity of its two-pool-tables-and-a-jukebox set-up.
Bal’s refashioned jukebox and the retro cool of its residents attracted Morrissey (who lived round the corner), Nick Cave and Andy Ross of Food Records, who began taking his bands there.
The pub gradually became a Britpop haunt, with Blur, Pulp and Menswear hanging round the pool-tables. Elastica signed their record contract there, and it may have birthed the start of the Blur-Oasis feud. Meeting guitarist Graham Coxon for the first time, one Oasis wag apparently jibed: ‘Nice music, s**t clothes.’
When Amy Winehouse started hanging out at the Mixer, this was the rock ’n’ roll history she was drawing on. Run by the Hurley family for 34 years, the pub changed hands in April 2018 and lost the twin pool tables. Sadly, its most famous patron wasn’t around to see the upgrades.
THE ELECTRIC BALLROOM
184 Camden High Street, NW1 8QP
As the carousel in 1963, this former Masonic Lodge suffered an early UK music riot when US country star Jim Reeves refused to play due to a poorly tuned piano. Fans stormed the venue, so staff hid the takings down a nearby manhole and legged it. Then in the early ‘70s, Wings, Led Zeppelin and Frank Zappa rented it as rehearsal space.
Re-opened as the Electric Ballroom in 1978, it hosted gigs by Joy Division, Talking Heads, the Clash, Wire, the Cramps, the Fall, U2 and Nick Cave, and was a function room for the local Greek community (George Michael’s sister had her wedding reception there).
On 15 August 1978, Sid Vicious played his UK farewell gig there with the band Vicious White Kids, before leaving for New York with Nancy Spungen, never to return.
After essential soundproofing, the venue re-opened in 1979 with a 2-Tone night starring the Specials, Madness and Dexys Midnight Runners. Jim Reeves’ ghost returned in 1985, when Jesus And Mary Chain fans, miffed at a short performance, threw bottles at the band, and smashed up the lights and amps.
DINGWALLS
Middle Yard, NW1 8AB
Opened in 1973 by wine merchant John Armit, Dingwalls Dance Hall was inspired by New York drinking spots, with the longest bar in London and 2am closing.
It became a popular hangout for locals including Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, jazz singer and author George Melly and artists David Hockney and Lucian Freud.
Canvey Island R&B thugs Dr Feelgood broke through there in June 1974, then the Stranglers made it their second home. Legend has it bassist (and karate expert) Jean-Jacques Burnel took on the Clash and The Sex Pistols in a punch up outside in 1976. Dingwalls was a hangout for the Pogues, and the site of their worst gig ever, a 1983 debacle where despairing tin whistle player Spider Stacy realised ‘there has to be some kind of purpose underneath all the anarchy.’
The same year, the Smiths played two dates, Morrissey introducing the band with ‘We’re the delicate Smiths... hello!’ and three months later it hosted REM’s first London concert. Blur, then called Seymour, played a pivotal gig here in 1989: the glowing Music Week review almost certainly got them signed.
THE ROUNDHOUSE
Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8EH
One of the most important rock venues in the world, the Roundhouse’s opening night as an arts venue came in 1966. The opening concert, billed as an ‘All-Night Rave Pop-Op Costume Masque Ball’, saw Soft Machine and Pink Floyd (both then unsigned) turn out for the launch of the International Times underground newspaper, an acid-drenched event humbly described by then Soft Machine guitarist Daevid Allen as ‘one of the most revolutionary events in the history of English alternative music and thinking’.
With an unofficial door policy that refused entry to mods, lest they ‘threaten the freaks’, the Roundhouse also hosted the Doors, Jefferson Airplane and Led Zeppelin’s first public performance (in 1968), and the Atomic Sunrise Festival, which ran for a week in March 1970 and featured performances by David Bowie, Hawkwind, and Genesis, all captured in a documentary unreleased to this day.
Other acts who’ve performed at the Roundhouse include Elton John, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac and Otis Redding. Motörhead debuted there on 20 July 1975 and Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks says the 4 July 1976 Ramones gig was one of the pivotal events in the birth of UK punk rock.
KOKO
1A Camden High Street, NW1 7JE
Opened as The Camden Theatre in 1900, this multi-tiered edifice was North London’s grandest performance venue, then a cinema. After WWII it re-opened as a BBC theatre, hosting a 1964 Rolling Stones gig recorded for an experimental stereo broadcast.
Renamed the Music Machine in 1977, it became a punk lodestone, hosting gigs by the Jam, Patti Smith and the Clash, who played four consecutive nights in ’78.
The venue also had its share of minor punk scuffles, including a run-in between Bob Dylan and Sid Vicious at a Link Wray gig in 1978, where Vicious called him ‘Bob Dildo’. The birthplace of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal following a battle-jacket triple-bill of Angel Witch, Iron Maiden and Samson in 1979, the Machine was also where AC/DC’s Bon Scott was last seen drinking before his death from alcohol poisoning.
In 1982 the venue was renamed the Camden Palace. Home of the New Romantics, and site of Madonna’s first UK performance in 1983, the Palace also became integral to the London dance music scene. It became Koko in 2004; one 2014 landmark was three Prince concerts in a day.
THE DUBLIN CASTLE
94 Parkway, NW1 7AN
Opened in 1856 for Irish immigrant workers, The Dublin Castle took a new path in 1978 when landlord Alo Conlon gave the Camden Invaders a gig. Later known as Madness, the group had to pretend they were a jazz band in order to get the booking. They subsequently began a mid-week residency. ‘More people were coming week after week,’ said frontman Suggs. ‘Then people started to dress like us. Then there were queues round the block. That’s when record companies started to notice.’ Madness filmed the My Girl video and chunks of their 1981 movie, Take It Or Leave It, in the pub.
Conlon went on to book such minor and unsigned bands as Coldplay, Blur, Supergrass, and Keane to play in the pub’s back room. Knowing they were onto a good thing, A&R scouts started to hang out at the pub, and, along with the Good Mixer, it became the hub of Britpop and the Camden Crawl music festival which ran, on and off, from 1995 to 2014. Amy Winehouse fell in love with the Castle, often serving behind the bar, and a mural of her now hangs in the doorway.
THE CAMDEN ROCKS PLAYLIST
Route 66 – Blues in Rhythm/1964
The Rolling Stones – On Air
Lucifer Sam
Pink Floyd – The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
We Did it Again
Soft Machine – The Soft Machine
Communication Breakdown – 22/6/69 Pop Sundae
Led Zeppelin – The Complete BBC Sessions
Hurry On Sundown
Hawkwind – Hawkwind
Dusk
Genesis – Trespass
All Through the City
Dr Feelgood – Down by the Jetty
Motörhead
Motörhead – Motörhead
I Don’t Want to Walk Around With You
Ramones – Ramones
Anarchy in the UK
Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
Hanging Around
The Stranglers – Rattus Norvegicus
Cheapskates
The Clash – Give ‘Em Enough Rope
Twilight Zone
Iron Maiden – Killers
One Step Beyond
Madness – One Step Beyond
There There My Dear
Dexys Midnight Runners – Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
Never Understand
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Burning Up
Madonna – Madonna
Transmetropolitan
The Pogues – Red Roses for Me
Arlington Road
Gallon Drunk – From the Heart of Town
Earl of Suave
Thee Headcoats – 25 Years of Being Childish
One Better Day
Madness – Full House, the Very Best of Madness
She’s So High
Blur – Leisure
Babies
Pulp – His N Hers
Waking Up
Elastica – Elastica
Come Back to Camden
Morrissey – You Are The Quarry
Wake Up Alone – Original Recording
Amy Winehouse – Lioness: Hidden Treasures
Sign ‘O’ The Times
Prince – Sign ‘O’ The Times
