Graham Parker: The Venue, London

GRAHAM PARKER was the perfect choice to open The Venue, Virgin boss Richard Branson's new club in the shell of the old Metropole Cinema hard by London's Victoria Station. Parker's brand of wall-to-wall rock'n'roll soul was invented (by the likes of Bobby Bland and Solomon Burke) for small clubs; although its more imaginative practitioners (notably Springsteen) have been able to expand the genre to fill theatres, Parker looks like he will remain more at home in a fairly intimate ambience.