Well, as I don't hardly never get to go clubbing these days I thought I'd hark on about the club nights that have meant the most to me over the years
1. Final Frontier - Club Uk, Wandsworth, London
Ah, that shuttlebus from Trafalgar Square.
I'm pretty sure I went to the night represented by that flyer, way back in 1994. Course to a fucking old fart like me it seems like only yesterday that techno was techno and trance was trance (and not happy hardcore) and the twain most definitely met at the friday night dance frenzy that was the Final Frontier.
There were three rooms, the huge main room piled high with podiums and Eed up kids waving glowsticks and blasting whistles to the unstoppable, re-bloody-lentless, earthshaking, four four kick drum beat; the middle room, small and experimental, where smaller DJs could get their shot and to an audience that were prepared to accept anything that could vaguely be described as Trance or Techno and that had a beat; and the first room, almost as large as the main room, it boasted it's own dedicated audience, all rushing their face-painted little heads off. The music in there was slightly softer than in the main room, and slightly more daring, and as a consequence that's where I spent most of my time, half naked, sweating like a skinny beast and doing robot arms.
It really was THE place to be if you like Techno and Trance in the mid-ninties. Jungle and Happy Hardcore had the limelight, meaning that there was a really fun underground vibe to the Techno scene, a bachanalian, we don't give a fuck let's dance feel to the whole thing that I've seldom encountered since, and it felt as if The Final Frontier was at the heart of it all. A place where Techno superstar DJs hailing from Detroit and France, and the smaller free party soundsystems rubbed shoulders happily, where you could always get a nice massage from a extremely friendly member of either sex, where strangers freely gave away scoopfuls of the all important Vicks Vaporub, and where green hair in top-knots was considered the high of taste.
Okay, so it got moodier as time went on, and the bouncers were resolutely pricks, and the police liked a raid or three, and the queue stretched for a mile (but we were usually on the guestlist for some reason that I can't remember), and the first time I went I spent the entirity of the next morning throwing up extremely heavyily after three grams of speed, but, fucking hell, when that place was good it was as good as anywhere ever.
Proper fun, for kids.
DJ List
Jeff Mills
Colin Dale
Laurent Garnier (a personal fave)
Sven Vath
Dave Angel (a personal fave)
Eddie Flashin' Faulkes
Spiral Tribe
Richie Hawtin
Underground Resistance
CJ Bolland
And lots more
I'll come back later |
