Now THAT is what I call a clubnight!

(as posted to LJ and Usenet)

All through the Spring and Summer of this year Sarah Orange and her crew have been quite literally hand-building an all-new club in Leeds, "TheSubculture", from the ruins of the old Bassment. A couple of weeks ago the new venue finally opened. And last Friday night the legendary Friday Flock moved to the new club, and back to it's proper date on the first Friday of the month.

And what a return! While the six month run at The Mixing Tin was OK, the nights there never quite seemed to capture the spirit of the original. But Friday at TheSubculture did, in truly spectacular style. It started slowly but steadily, a crowd building and building until the whole brand new venue was a sea of dancing bodies and happy faces. Yes, Goths are allowed to have fun!

I've never really been able to identify what marks a truly great club night from just a good one, but whatever it is was present in spades on Friday. Forget any horror stories you may ever have heard about the old Bassment - the new venue is an amazing place with an incredibly good atmosphere, a genuinely hi-fi sound system which manages to both blast out the amps *and* produce accurate distortion-free music all across the range, and the friendliest bar staff I've ever met in a club. It's not often people seem genuinely happy to serve you at five to two in the morning, but this lot made it seem completely natural.

And then there was the music... Once again, the magic was back. Track after track, never putting a foot wrong, ranging from well known classics to extreme obscurity and back, flowing effortlessly from Trad to Punk to EBM to Goth Rock and back again, never an empty floor, never a dull moment.

Leeds finest club is properly back, and firing in all cylinders and then some. If you've never been to Flock before, go. You will not be disappointed.

Impartiality note: Yes, I'm involved with Sheepish, however not with Friday Flock other than as a *very* satisfied punter. Flock is entirely a Phono Paul / GothVodka production.

http://www.fridayflock.net - Roll on the next one!