Eastcheap Records: live bands and a 2am licence in the City

The City has the opposite problem to the rest of London. The buildings are full at eleven in the morning and empty at seven in the evening, so most of what looks like nightlife on a map up here is a lunch trade with a licence.

Eastcheap Records is one of the exceptions, and the giveaway is the closing time.

Where it is

20 Eastcheap, London EC3M 1EB, a short walk from Monument, run by Rocket Leisure as part of its Records Bars group. It describes itself as live music, cocktails and good times in the City, which is a fair summary: it is a basement-feeling room with a stage rather than a bar with a band in the corner.

The opening times, and the day that catches people out

Checked against the venue on 9 September 2026:

Monday and Tuesday, 4pm to midnight. Wednesday, 4pm to 1am. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 2pm to 2am. Sunday, closed.

Two things follow from that. The first is that Sunday is shut, which is the single most common wasted journey here, because a City venue that opens at two in the afternoon reads as somewhere that must be open at the weekend. The second is that a 2am close on Thursday, Friday and Saturday is genuinely unusual in the Square Mile. Our late night listings cover what else is open at that hour.

The music

Bands play the Main Stage on most open nights and the sets are long: a typical billing runs 7pm to midnight, often as a duo warming up before the full band takes over for the later sets. The programming leans funk, soul, disco and modern classics rather than anything that expects you to stand still and listen.

Thursday is the loud one by design, which fits a street where Friday is now half a working day. The venue publishes its week ahead, so the band is knowable before you go rather than a surprise on the door.

Booking and the practical bits

Tables can be booked and are worth booking for Thursday to Saturday. The phone line, 0203 006 5911, is monitored until 6pm and deliberately not during service, so the evening is not the time to ring. Bookings and venue hire go through the group rather than the venue address.

Nearby, if it is shut or full

Wagtail is the other City venue built for the evening, a rooftop on King William Street with a late licence and resident DJs, and it is a few minutes away. Horizon 22 is free and the highest free view in the City, though it closes early enough that it is a before rather than an instead.

Leadenhall Market and St Dunstan in the East are both a short walk and both free, and London at night covers the wider evening.