Local services in Brighton and Hove
The Lanes form a retail, leisure and residential area near the seafront, characterized by narrow alleyways following the street pattern of the original fishing village. The Lanes contain predominantly clothing stores, jewellers, antique shops, restaurants and pubs. The North Laine area is a retail, leisure and residential area immediately north of the Lanes. Its name derives from the Anglo-Saxon "Laine" meaning "fields", although the misnomer "North Lanes" is often used to describe the area. The North Laine contains a mix of businesses dominated by cafés, independent and avant-garde shops, bars and theatres.
Churchill Square is a shopping centre with a floor space of 470,000 sq ft (44,000 m2) and over 80 shops, several restaurants and 1,600 car-parking spaces.[83] It was built in the 1960s as an open-air, multi-level pedestrianized shopping centre, but was rebuilt and enlarged in 1998 and is no longer open-air. Further retail areas include Western Road and London Road, the latter of which is currently undergoing extensive regeneration in the form of new housing and commercial properties.
Brighton has many night-life hotspots and is associated with popular musicians including Fatboy Slim, Kirk Brandon, Tim Booth, Nick Cave, Robert Smith and Jimmy Somerville. Live music venues include the Concorde2, Brighton Centre and the Brighton Dome, where ABBA received a substantial boost to their career when they won the Eurovision Song Contest 1974. Many events and performance companies operate in the city.
Popular alternative rock band The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, alternative rock duo Blood Red Shoes, indie rock band The Kooks, metal core band Architects, hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks and dark cabaret band Birdeats baby originated in Brighton. Alternative blues rock duo Royal Blood formed in Brighton in 2013 and had a UK number 1 album with their debut in 2014. Indie psych band The Wytches are based in Brighton and signed to Heavenly Recordings in 2014, releasing their debut album Annabel Dream Reader in August which reached the UK top 50. There are over 300 pubs in the town Brighton is home to many independent record labels such as FatCat Records and Memorials of Distinction.
