Oh god this! We always joke you can tell who the other women are in their 30s really glammed up in dresses and heels (I’m one of them) standing next to a kid at the bar in combats and trainers. It’s strange. There used to be dress codes. Anything goes these days
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This quote would have also comfortably be made in the 1960's (which you may already have appreciated). I feel like someone just keeps resetting the matrix
Clarkson wears (wore, he probably doesn't anymore?) 90s cut light blue dad jeans with tacky brown leather boots from the middle aged man shoe shop.
Wearing dark wash slim cut selvedge jeans with some quality leather boots is still very fashionable.
Wearing a pair of hard shoes that will cause serious damage when kicking somebody? No problem, come on in. Pair of soft trainers? You fucking animal, get out!!! Never understood that rule - thankfully we went to a rock/indy club where they didn't give a shit.
yeah i never understood the obsession with dress code at pubs and nightclubs
like, people are gonna be throwing up in the corner and fingering strangers in the toilets...why are you so arsed whether they're wearing trainers or not?
Yeah, never got it either. Being a guy, I think it was as much to do with keeping the male ratio down as anything else.
My experience was that the places that focused on dress were the ones that attracted the posers and didn't care about the music. The clubs that played the best music didn't care what you wore, for the most part (they probably would have an issue if you went nude, I imagine)
No, wearing suits was 2 generations ago, the 80s lot. The idea was people wore overalls to work, so wanted to look smart at the weekends.
In the 90s we went out like it sounds young people do now, combats or jeans and a t-shirt. I don't remember so many hoodies back then, though.
Back in the early 90s, almost all nightclubs wouldn't let you in unless you were wearing shoes, etc. All that changed when rave culture became mainstream, because people started dressing down a lot.
I too remember the “black trousers and ironed shirt” era 😆. When we primarily dressed to satisfy the narrow preferences of nightclub bouncers, not ourselves or potential dates.
I went to dozens of raves all over Europe in the 90s.
I wore jeans, trainers and a t-shirt to my first one (DJ Sy - Hardcore Heaven, Rythm Station, Aldershot 1994).
They were soaked in sweat within half an hour.
It took me (and 3 others) a good half an hour to get them off in the morning.
Didn't help that we were absolutely wasted.
Lesson learned. It was trackies or shorts after that!
Yes!
Best days of my life.
Went there a few times.
I remember coming out, dazed into the light and getting all of the flyers from the pretty girls outside for all the other raves.
We'd then drive to a multi-storey carpark somewhere (in my friend's 'Kawasaki Green' Fiesta XR2i) where someone would have a soundsystem, and the party would carry on for a few hours more. About 100 people would show up!
I ended up playing the decks in Germany for a while.
I played the fiercest Jungle in Niedersachsen and Hamburg!
I found a shoe box under my bed full of flyers and promos from the 1990s and early 2000s recently. I have no use for them, but it is oddly difficult to throw them away. Good Times.
Ah, the badly ironed shirt, formal shoes, and jeans era. I saw a group of 4 men walking through the town centre dressed exactly like that recently with their hands in their jeans pockets. I made me laugh that i could tell their age group solely from what they were wearing.
I could almost smell the overwhelming stench of aftershave from across the street in a moving car.
God, I hated going clubbing in late 80s when you had to cosplay as a fucking estate agent to get in ( this was in Hertfordshire).
Mind you, I still wasn’t a big fan in the early 90s but at least I was comfortably dressed and, while drink was still quite expensive I didn’t buy much due to not being in a legal frame of mind. Thank fuck for rave.
Why though? Went clubbing a lot around 2009-10 and we just all wore trainers, high-tops, doc martens etc. That was 15 years ago now, so not exactly a new thing.
When I was last frequenting clubs in my High school/Uni days, it was a strict no trainers rule. You might get away with black trainers but white trainers were a definite no from the bouncers.
This was about 2002 - 2007 so a bit before you. A few other things changed - I never got ID'd in the early days (which was a good thing for me) but it was much more common towards the end.
I still think a visit to a nightclub should be a dress up in your gladrags night but I haven't honestly been in one since before 2020!
I did always think the no trainers was strict but, that's just what it was. Plus I was always in strappy unwearable heels away.
I guess it may also be down to which clubs I frequented which was mainly like rock/indie/alt nights. Went to a few other "normal" clubs and trainers were fine also, tho did have a mate get turned away since he had trackies on which is fair.
IDing folk was pretty harsh, I remember getting turned away once with a valid passport since I looked very slightly different considering it was a passport done when I was 14/15 I guess.
We would "suit up" now and again but aye, I'd generally just wear a polo shirt, jeans and high-tops or doc martens. Preferred to be comfortable since it was always sweaty as fuck 😅
There's a difference between dressing up to go out (which I agree with) and dressing up in a way that's uncomfortable, especially for dancing. You shouldn't be going to a club looking like you're going to bed or to the gym (unless it's some kind of theme night), but equally not in a shirt and tie like you're going to a job interview. I guess it's a bit easier for girls, as you have a much wider choice of clothes.
The trainers thing really used to annoy me, because shoes have never been comfortable for me and I don't exactly think a good night is having your feet feeling like they are being cut to ribbons. I think it comes from a dated attitude of a nightclub being a meat market rather than somewhere to actually enjoy the music.
I think the point of the dress code was you had to be planning to go to night club. It stopped pissed people who had just planned on going to the pub from deciding to continue their night in a night club once the pubs shut. I do think it probably worked to some extent as I remember after a night in the pub a few times people saying lets go on to a night club but then realising you were not dressed for it.
There was a notoriously rough and expensive club in my town that everyone wanted to go to when they where pissed but always regretted it.
The dress code was strict so it lead to the term "Safety Trainers"
So you would be sat in the pub at 1am and someone would say "come on lets go Royals" and you could reply "sorry mate safety trainers"
Dress codes were shit. As a student, I used to go to clubs that considered themselves more exclusive and they insisted on shoes. The crowd were monoliths, uninspired people dressed pretty much the same. Shoes, jeans, shirt and maybe blazers. Then I got into raving and more alternative scenes with no pretentious dress codes and people expressed themselves far better. So much cooler, and totally unrestrained by a pointless ideal enforced by heavy handed security on a power trip in a bar/club so far up its own arse they forgot it’s supposed to be fun
It’s still crazy to me what you can wear to get in a nightclub these days. When I first started going out you had to have shoes, trousers, and shirt (male).
Depends on the night, that would have been more of a city centre meat market kind of club. I think the idea was to make the place more classy, but they always had the worst issues with violence. The indie and rock clubs with no dress code were fine.
The only dress code at our indie club was you couldn't dress like you was going to one of the towny clubs.
It stopped the dick heads who got knocked back from the towny club round the corner trying to get in there instead.
I was definitely more of a shaz (a slightly classer chav) than a goth and once ended up on a night out with my more goth/rock friends. Quite the experience going to a night club in my pink sparkly Chinese style top while everyone else was in 50 shades of black.
In fairness - nicest bunch of people ever, even the 6'8" bearded tattooed scary looking bloke who, honestly scared me a bit. He actually brought me a drink and got the DJ to find a song I might know - it was a punk/rock version of Grease. Loved it!
I remember my mate was refused entry to Jilly's in Manchester because he had a shirt on. He just took it off and checked it in the cloakroom, spent the night topless.
I used to go to rock clubs multiple times a week back in the early 90s. There was absolutely a dress code but it wasn't enforced by the clubs, more the customers. If it wasn't band shirt, jeans and docs for the guys and gothic dress, corset and fmb's for the girls you'd be denied dance floor access minimum.
Tactically positioned headbangers and writhing goth chicks in our club. You risk getting hair whipped or moshed aside by possessive biker boyfriend brandishing a Newkey bottle.
I vigorously headbutted my friend once. He was coming up while I was going down. There were tears.
It was similar with us, and a struggle depending on what the group wanted to do. Quite a few bars we wanted to pre-drink in may insist on shirt and shoes, some people would want to go on to more a proper night club, you had to decide or hedge your bets for something that could fit in either.
Yep, the bouncers at our local club were all bikers - they couldn't give a shit what you were wearing, though as somebody mentioned they would discourage the trendies from coming in if they'd obviously been bounced from the meat market down the road.
Yes, and sometimes the shirt had to be plain, with no checks or stripes if it was (or aspired to be) a fancy club. And not even smart trainers, or sometimes not even loafer/moccasin style, just had to be smart shiny shoes, and there was that time everyone had awful shiny buckles and square toe shoes. Me and my mates hung on to our old school shoes and only wore them for nights out.
There's really a regional thing to this too. Go out in a lot of places in the UK and young people still get dressed up in heels. Meanwhile in much of London it's been trainers for years. I really noticed it when I moved down to London after university in about 2012. Within a couple of years all my female friends had transitioned from heels to trainers for most nights out.
Yeah, I was gonna say I spent 2007-2014 going out in London, and the clubs we went to were never shirt types of places. Sure, the wanky places in Mayfair were, but Shoreditch, Brixton etc never gave a fuck what you were wearing.
Yeah exactly. If you were going out in west it would be heels and dresses for the women, shirts and smart shoes for the men. But we virtually never did that. Our going out was pretty much all Shoreditch, Camden, Brixton, Dalston, Peckham. Trainers were definitely the standard thing in those places.
That's a bit later than the period most people are talking about by then. I noticed that even by the mid 00s, I was surprised about how the dress codes have severely watered down from 5-10 years previously.
So there's no ludicrous dress code anymore? It was normal for no jeans, no trainers, no anything the bouncer( if they were in a bad mood) deemed not suitable eg brogues, checky shirt
They play the music of 20 years ago for 5 seconds and then another tune from 20 years ago for 5 seconds, and they keep changing it before the good part.
My friends and I were out drinking recently and walked past the old club we used to go in when we were 17-18 (Tap 'n Tin in Chatham if anyone knows it). We're 36 now. We drunkenly decided to go in and see what it's like. So we walked in and the kids were all lined up on the dancefloor un-ironically doing the macarena.
Of all the things I expected to see, that was probably the last.
Another 30s Tap goer checking in. I’d like to thank you all for the good times, the help putting a cone on Tommy Wags head.
I went again maybe 6 years ago, the Poundland night was all drinks for 1.20. Outrageous.
I was passing time at Curry's once waiting for my wife at the John Lewis'.
There was the old camcorder-monitor combo in the window, and a couple of boys were doing Fortnite dances to it.
It occurred to me that I would have been beaten up for doing that outside Dixon's in the 90s. Perhaps some changes are better than others.
Yeah I would always be bored out of my mind within half an hour because I find techno music interminably dull. But I'm sure some of my friends would say the same about some of the indie clubs I used to love!
It does, that's one of the things I've always disliked about it. I have no problem with drugs but I've always taken the view that anything described as 'you have to be on drugs to enjoy it' isn't my bag.
But also, aside from that, I think it's just not a form of music that's for me, because the parts of music I like (melodies, vocals, lyrics) aren't really the focus.
Totally respect this.
Just wanted to add that there is a big crowd having always enjoyed techno sober - like myself. The music and imagery it evokes is hypnotising enough. I struggle to tolerate anything with lyrics in a dance setting, but am neurodivergent, so maybe this is why.
Same, I go to these events when they play 90’s hardcore/hard house and it’s a pretty cheap night out.
It’s usually an older crowd and a really good atmosphere, hardly drink at these events just drop a couple of magic beans and hit the dance floor.
The early digital camera era was so sad to look back on.
Entire swathes of my late childhood and teens are reduced to as many too-dark, washed out, VGA and 1mp images as could fit on a 8mb MMC card.
This frustrates me about pretty much any event now. Yes, take a video or two and a few photos to remember the night, but don’t stick glued to the phone for hours trying to please people online who couldn’t care less.
Was a parent helper at a school pta disco recently. Key stage 2 (so 7 - 11 y/o).
Most kids were just having the usual overexcited fun. But a decent proportion spent almost the whole time on their phone.
Except Fabric which is one of the best things about it. They give you a sticker to put over your phones lens. Idc if it's a 'bait spot' the stickers and the air con alone are enough to get me going back.
Weird. Me and my friends were in a club last night and it was mostly 18 - 25 year olds, I didn't see a single phone. Not even one, for the entire night.
The only time a phone was visible was at the bar as people were using them to pay for drinks.
I'm not Gen Z, so decided to ask a few people on this and they all said they keep their phones away because people don't want to appear on social media.
I'm in my 40s and have noticed that the youngsters today have learned from my generations mistakes in terms of sharing on social media, which I am glad to see. My generation were the first with social media and the amount of over sharing by some of my friends/acquaintances was embarrassing especially for their kids. I knew some folk that gave Facebook a blow by blow account of their child's potty training journey that was just weird.
Phones are a part of life now and people need to deal with it.
When I had a job where that could not happen, we used to travel to europe for clubbing. They banned phones pretty early on and had a real culture of not taking pictures. It is pretty wild and lawless in some places! All behind me now.
Extremely expensive. Difficult to find one that's a nice level of busy too. There'll be one or two that are absolutely rammed and everywhere else will be dead.
I've found the opposite actually. In the era I used to go clubbing, the cost of drinks were a level above what they would cost in pubs. When beer was £2 in pubs it was £3 in clubs. When it was £3 in pubs it was £4.50 in clubs.
On the few occasions I have been to clubs in the last 10 years I have been surprised by the fact that drinks have been more or less the same price as the surrounding pubs.
That just speaks to how expensive pubs have become tbh lol
Struggle to go out anywhere and get a cider for anything below a fiver unless you're in Spoons.
This is seems to have been the case since covid. Usually you could go somewhere and it’s pretty alright, now it seems like you’re either in a place that’s really bollocks because it’s sparsely populated or go somewhere and not be able to move.
People seem to pick one space now and stick to it.
I had this last Friday night in Leeds, proper weird. Went to about 4 different bars, all oddly quiet for a Friday night, ended up in Jake’s bar on call lane and realised the reason the others were quiet was because everyone in Leeds was in that small basement room lmao it was absolutely heaving. There I was thinking Jake’s bar stopped being cool about 10 years ago
That was my first thought. I remember in the 00s a couple of my best friends were Irish. Ireland banned cigarettes in pubs a couple of years before we did and I asked then what it was like and if it was better/worse or whatever. They said the main difference was that you were constantly smelling farts.
I wonder if that's why my generation tended to put on so much cologne that cats were passing out in gardens as they walked past. You could smell some of the guys from the next street, and it was usually something really sickeningly sweet, like Joop! or Le Male..
If anything they smell even more of piss and booze, cos in the past that was masked by the smell of fags. Post 2007 clubbing gen’s will never know the familiar feeling of a lit cigarette brushing across your hand as you squeeze through to the bar 🥹
Naive as we all were lol.
I'm 32 now and I see younger people being all nonchalant exactly how I used to be and thinking I was hiding it but it's quite obvious if someone's on something lol. Maybe it's just because I've been there though.
Bouncer here.
We joke about our current customers being grey house people. Office job, small yappy dog, laminate flooring, open plan ground floor, cycling, gaming and they live in a grey painted house. Bonus points for the loft conversion. Honestly, It’s like these fuckers are printed out of a machine, they’re all exactly the same!
We’re not sure where these fuckers came from, but they’re super lame, their kids are narcissistic twats and they sucked the fun out of everything.
You've probably heard it already but aye... [A song about these grey loving folk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9n0_5p8XKo)
Don't quite get it myself, I guess conformity is comfortable? Not saying I'm a "non-conformist" of course I do a bunch of shite everyone else does, I'm pretty basic. Just insane when they all literally do the same things, same haircut, clothes, car, hobbies, house decor, dog breed, dog name, child name etc etc.
Also love how they wear skinny jeans now after ripping on folk years ago for wearing them.
Flooring would not come close to the most boring conversations I have to endure. It’s the fucking dog worship that does me. What the hell is that about? It’s really weird. Why are you talking to the doorman about your dog? You all say exactly the same shit, too. It’s so fucking boring!
Ahaha, it is also just not my thing, so all places are wrong. I went to Pacha in Ibiza when it was at its peak and didn't like it. More than age, it is the type of people.
i think thats also due to the fact theyre less busy so theyve bended the rules on who they let in. during the busy times in the past it felt very strict, nowadays to make ends meet they let ppl in with pajamas on. i also remember how tough it used to be to get in if it was 6-10 of us guys, nowdays they dont seem to bat an eyelid.
I went for my first "big" night out in about three years to Underworld in Camden recently and drinks were literally £8 a pop. How the fuck are gen-Z ever going to know what it feels like to wait all night for Love Will Tear Us Apart to come on only to cry through it all because you broke up with your girlfriend last week?!
Drinks in clubs were always expensive, I assume they pre drink the way we did and only have to buy a couple out? It wasn’t uncommon to be paying £5+ for a drink at a club 10+ years ago
Your small local towns nightclub? Probably pretty dead but as far as major city nights out go it’s still the exact same in terms of busyness that it was before. Things are slightly more expensive of course but not to the level that some of the people in this comment section are suggesting, unless they’re London based which is always the outlier.
People overstate the use of phones too, aside from people in the smoking area you will rarely see someone with a phone out unless they’re taking a photo of their mates which was no different to people with digital cameras or club reps taking photos for their promotional posters.
The one difference is that the smoking area will smell biblical because most of the kids vape as opposed to smoking fags so there’s a bonus.
Of course they’re more expensive, everything is. It’s pretty much the same as when you were younger but the music is shit (ie not what I grew up on 😂) and young people look really young! You will find yourself going ‘is he fuck 18’ several times during the night.
I’m 40, single and in a couple of football teams so still go out quite a lot. There’s lots and lots of cocaine and drinks are far more expensive, I long for the days of old when there used to be offers on drinks for £1 or something lol
One good thing is that I can just wear cargos and a t-shirt now rather than uncomfortable heels and a dress! I’m kinda not looking forward to my sisters wedding because I’ll have to buy ALLLLL the pieces of my outfit as I don’t even own heels anymore! 😂
On a related note, I'd like to know what consists of a "rave" these days and what music is played now.
Went to a few in the early - mid 90s when it was all breakbeat hardcore, and later on tended towards drum & bass, gabber and happy hardcore. Often with alcohol not present or rarely used for obvious reasons...
Is it still much the same, but with newer evolved versions of the various strands of "rave" music, or just a more generic term for a party (illegal or not)?
I had exactly this chat with a Gen Z colleague yesterday. She said she’d been to a rave at the weekend. I got all excited and asked whether it was a legal one, or in a field.
She said no, not a field, and yes, legal. So, in a warehouse? Under some railway arches?
It was in a bar. Her friend was DJing.
NOT A RAVE. (I didn’t say this though.)
a lot of time nowadays ppl say rave to differentiate it from trash cattlemarket clubs
also 'the dance' but that has slightly different connotations
what used to be called raves (field / warehouse / etc. are now usually called free parties
in UK at least :)
Most of the raves these days are drum n bass, and they look and sound amazing. The sound quality is better and the lighting is far more advanced than anything we ever had in the 90's.
The festivals are off the charts. Me and my mates went to boomtown festival and the experience was literally life changing. It takes a lot to impress someone who's done everything from Hacienda to Space in Ibiza. I lived the entire 90's club / rave scene from early breakbeat hardcore to that moment when ferry Corsten dropped binary binary for the first time at gate crasher, peak uplifting trance.
I was talking to someone about going out and she said she went to raves and got drunk, and i couldn’t get my head around it. We did not get drunk at raves. The I realised the meaning of the word had clearly changed!
I mean you still get raves in fields but there are Warehouse raves as events in all kinds of music not just "rave music": Acid, house, Techno, Liquid DnB, Jump-up etc. As a fan of this type of music I have attended a fair few.
Alcohol is there. but everyone is still off their face on something else so they bars are usually just handing out Water and Chewing Gum. Obviously phones are everywhere. Still just as sweaty. Raining from the roof.
Not sure if I was just oblivious 15 years ago but these days there seems to be way more cocaine. The really shitty places where you'd get a drink for £1 seem to have been replaced by really shitty places where the drinks are very slightly cheaper than everywhere else, the clubs themselves are as expensive as they always were.
The men dress like they're at a house party, the women dress the same as always but with trainers instead of heals. Also seems to be harder to find a decent kebab before heading home.
Everyone seems really young but lets face it, we're just old. Otherwise pretty much the same.
I'm seeing cocaine mentioned a fair bit on this thread. Has cocaine become a lot cheaper and easier to access? I literally never have taken drugs so I'm clueless about any drugs and how to get hold of it, how much it costs etc.
I don't touch the stuff either but I've noticed even at work parties and team nights out people are on. I think its easier to get now with dealers being on Instagram/snap ect. no need to meet some dodgy guy on a street corner any more.
Probs easier to access because dealers sell through Snapchat and WhatsApp and advertise their menus on social media so people just order what they want through a simple message and it’s delivered
I don’t do drugs but I’m in uni and every group chat has at least 2 dealers advertising in there and posting their menus
Not cheaper, they've just stayed relatively consistent in price over the years. Which, when everything else has doubled or trebled, adds a new dimension to the appeal
I'm in my mid 40s and still go to a rave every couple of months. Last time I went to a normal nightclub was about 4 years ago though. To be honest, they are much better now, less cheesy music, door staff are actually there to provide a service rather than cause fights, they also have people who just walk around checking on people, drinks were expensive but not excessively so, overall a good night was had by all.
Do bouncers/door staff still let in and prey on groups of giggling girls the wrong side of 18 and refuse entry to obviously of age people ?
Had more than my fair share of arguments with them pervy fucks on the door finding a reason to not let you in.
The 90’s night clubs 🙄
Nightclub DJ here. Almost 40. Been doing it for ten years.
They're noticably quieter all-round. Saturdays are still great but everything else has dropped off. When I first started, Fridays were slightly quieter than Saturdays. Now they're much quieter.
Price-wise, they've risen a lot. Hell of a lot of pressure on venues when it comes to costs. The days of vodka and cokes being £1.50 through the week and £2.50 at weekends are gone. Expect somewhere between £3.80 and £4.50 now.
Music-wise, you'll still hear a lot of songs from 10 years ago. If you can get through a night without hearing Levels, Timber or Waka-Waka you're doing well.
The bouncer industry has been cleaned up massively. They're all wearing SIA badges on their sleeves and acting professionally now. To quote one bouncer I used to work with, "I miss the days when you could drag cunts into the fire exit and give them a good kicking". Worst they'll do is put their arm through yours and drag you outside.
Have only seen one customer punched to the floor by a bouncer in the past ten years. That was a Glaswegian woman, and although it sounds horrible to say a woman deserved to be knocked to the floor with one punch, she really did deserve it. She was asked politely to leave the club several times and started shouting at the bouncers "Do you know who I am? Do you know who my family are? You're fucking dead. There's a bounty on your head and you're not making it home tonight." Started crying as soon as she hit the floor, and obviouisly nothing happened to those bouncers.
They're a shadow of their former selves. About 2010 really was the beginning of the end for them. Especially since they banned a lot of the drink offers.
lot's of drunk women in their 50s reliving their youth. All the actual young people are at home watching netflix and wondering how they are going to pay their rent.
Closed.
I've frequented a bar/club a handful of times since Covid and generally it hasnt been particularly busy. Much broader age mix than my 'heyday' but a lot less people overall.
Get on a plane and have a night out in Holland. Sound systems are massive. Take your pick. A hardcore party, raw hardstyle, euphoric Hardstyle, early rave. Non stop parties. Uk is no good
The last time I went to one was in my early 30's, and it felt like the under 18 disco scene from the inbetweeners.
Everyone looked about 15. That was the moment I realised I was just old.
I had become one of those blokes that you'd always see stood around the edge of the dance floor, looking weird and a bit dodgy.
Now it's a bottle of Red in a quiet country pub with an open fire on a winters day for me.... ahhhhhh bliss.
If you ask my girlfriend they are filled with young desperate girls who are half naked and walk around begging for attention and will approach and male they see.
The more the male seems taken the larger the attraction from these young, desperate, half naked women.
As you can tell I am not allowed near these for the fear of being attacked and ripped apart by the voracious females that prowl these places.
Broad question. Your experience will depend entirely on the venue, the music, crowd etc.
Is it just a regular nightclub night or are you going to see a particular artist/DJ?
If it's the latter, generally expect a more appreciative atmosphere, a more mature crowd (depends on the artist) but probably more drugs.
The former will be more drunken antics, less focus on the music, probably a younger crowd etc.
Your enjoyment of these things will depend on your tolerance for all of the above.
Last time I was in a club in the UK was 2008, when the credit crunch had hit hard. It was in Cardiff on a Saturday night, drink were seriously dirt cheap and the place was fucking empty. Last time I was in a club at all was 2016 in a small town in northern Ukraine, which was way busier than that one in Cardiff. A round of drinks I bought cost about a fiver, which included two draught beers, a cocktail, two cans of a red bull and a 70cl bottle of vodka for the table.
These days I just go to raves, because if I went to a club I'd just feel like an old man yelling at clouds with the price/phones/vapes/etc and don't get me started on trend in djing the last few years of playing about 10 seconds of a song before banging out the next one and the next one.
Last time I went I felt like a chaperone at a school disco.
But then the DJ put the Vengaboys on and all the over 35s stormed the dancefloor for three minutes of euphoria. After that they went back to dismal melody-free autotuned RnB so it emptied out.
i havent been in one in years but i would guess they are different to back in my day.
Today is (probably) all about getting the right photos on instagram
I loved it in the 80s before the whole rave scene took off. Only been once recently. A small place. I did feel that people were thinking "what's that old creepy guy doing here" so I left. It was actually a very nice place, emphasis on the music, not drinking yourself into oblivion.
Went a few times over xmas with some old mates.
Everything our way seems to be catering to the 30+ crowd instead nowadays as the kids just arent going out.
Was a lot more chilled than it used to be back in the day. No dickhead bouncers, no panicking about dress codes, no queues (was gong to say no lines but everyone knows thats no accuracte)
I didnt hate it
Oh and the music for 75% of it hasnt changed since I started going out in like 05. I joked that we'd be hearing fatman scoop any second then on it came.
What I don’t get is now you don’t go out until half 11, ten years ago I was half way to a donner kebab or battered turkey stick (don’t ask) at that time.
Now I’m in bed for half 11, if I’m having a late one.
All the kids are wearing jeans and trainers. I broke my heels out for NYE and it was really clear who the other millennials were.
Oh god this! We always joke you can tell who the other women are in their 30s really glammed up in dresses and heels (I’m one of them) standing next to a kid at the bar in combats and trainers. It’s strange. There used to be dress codes. Anything goes these days
Generation before used to go out in suits, then there was the terrible blue jeans and brown shoes era.
With an ill-fitting, untucked, button-up shirt.
I feel personally attacked
One of us.
cough wrong chief mysterious ink summer gullible label marble grandfather *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And CK One, with an undertone of Lynx Africa.
And Polo
>Ahhh the smell of Joop I still wear Joop, and Fahrenheit. The amount of comments I get is wild as it gives people nostalgia
Ah my people.
And Yardley for men
If this is bad attire I really need to update my wardrobe. What's wrong with brown shoes and blue jeans anyway, that's a classic.
It's not bad attire. It is a classic. And that's the problem. Kids don't wear classics. They associate classics with their parents and grandparents.
“And they don’t cut their hair, I can’t tell the boys from the girls nowadays… And don’t get me started on flares!”
This quote would have also comfortably be made in the 1960's (which you may already have appreciated). I feel like someone just keeps resetting the matrix
> It's not bad attire. It is a classic. It's a bit Jeremy Clarkson these days
Clarkson wears (wore, he probably doesn't anymore?) 90s cut light blue dad jeans with tacky brown leather boots from the middle aged man shoe shop. Wearing dark wash slim cut selvedge jeans with some quality leather boots is still very fashionable.
It is bad, brown shoes with jeans always looked bad to me. Very Jeremy Clarkson middle aged rugby fans vibes.
They still do this in Dublin. Are they a salesman, are they on a night out? Who knows.
Often straight from the packet and covered in creases in a lovely rectangular pattern! Or maybe that was just my flatmate.
>terrible blue jeans and brown shoes era. Can still find this look out and about if you go to a pub showing an England rugby game.
That usually comes with a beer belly, England jersey from the 2003 World Cup, and a Barbour jacket
'pint of hobgoblin please mate, none of that weak piss lager for me, leave that for the nancyball fans'
Square toed slip ons, square toed slip ons everywhere.
The terrible blue jeans and brown shoes era comes around every year, it's called the Six Nations.
Wearing a pair of hard shoes that will cause serious damage when kicking somebody? No problem, come on in. Pair of soft trainers? You fucking animal, get out!!! Never understood that rule - thankfully we went to a rock/indy club where they didn't give a shit.
yeah i never understood the obsession with dress code at pubs and nightclubs like, people are gonna be throwing up in the corner and fingering strangers in the toilets...why are you so arsed whether they're wearing trainers or not?
Yeah, never got it either. Being a guy, I think it was as much to do with keeping the male ratio down as anything else. My experience was that the places that focused on dress were the ones that attracted the posers and didn't care about the music. The clubs that played the best music didn't care what you wore, for the most part (they probably would have an issue if you went nude, I imagine)
The latter is still found during the Six Nations
No, wearing suits was 2 generations ago, the 80s lot. The idea was people wore overalls to work, so wanted to look smart at the weekends. In the 90s we went out like it sounds young people do now, combats or jeans and a t-shirt. I don't remember so many hoodies back then, though. Back in the early 90s, almost all nightclubs wouldn't let you in unless you were wearing shoes, etc. All that changed when rave culture became mainstream, because people started dressing down a lot.
I too remember the “black trousers and ironed shirt” era 😆. When we primarily dressed to satisfy the narrow preferences of nightclub bouncers, not ourselves or potential dates.
I went to dozens of raves all over Europe in the 90s. I wore jeans, trainers and a t-shirt to my first one (DJ Sy - Hardcore Heaven, Rythm Station, Aldershot 1994). They were soaked in sweat within half an hour. It took me (and 3 others) a good half an hour to get them off in the morning. Didn't help that we were absolutely wasted. Lesson learned. It was trackies or shorts after that!
Same here! I used to go to one in Aldershot, general something. Maybe we hugged each other! God, those days. Time goes really fucking fast doesn’t it?
Yes! Best days of my life. Went there a few times. I remember coming out, dazed into the light and getting all of the flyers from the pretty girls outside for all the other raves. We'd then drive to a multi-storey carpark somewhere (in my friend's 'Kawasaki Green' Fiesta XR2i) where someone would have a soundsystem, and the party would carry on for a few hours more. About 100 people would show up! I ended up playing the decks in Germany for a while. I played the fiercest Jungle in Niedersachsen and Hamburg!
I found a shoe box under my bed full of flyers and promos from the 1990s and early 2000s recently. I have no use for them, but it is oddly difficult to throw them away. Good Times.
Ah, the badly ironed shirt, formal shoes, and jeans era. I saw a group of 4 men walking through the town centre dressed exactly like that recently with their hands in their jeans pockets. I made me laugh that i could tell their age group solely from what they were wearing. I could almost smell the overwhelming stench of aftershave from across the street in a moving car.
God, I hated going clubbing in late 80s when you had to cosplay as a fucking estate agent to get in ( this was in Hertfordshire). Mind you, I still wasn’t a big fan in the early 90s but at least I was comfortably dressed and, while drink was still quite expensive I didn’t buy much due to not being in a legal frame of mind. Thank fuck for rave.
'whats the dress code, I've only got trainers!'
Who wants or needs a dress code in a shitty highstreet club? Let people be comfy
Black smart shoes, no trainers was the rules when I was in to clubs. I can't imagine going to a club with trainers!
Why though? Went clubbing a lot around 2009-10 and we just all wore trainers, high-tops, doc martens etc. That was 15 years ago now, so not exactly a new thing.
When I was last frequenting clubs in my High school/Uni days, it was a strict no trainers rule. You might get away with black trainers but white trainers were a definite no from the bouncers. This was about 2002 - 2007 so a bit before you. A few other things changed - I never got ID'd in the early days (which was a good thing for me) but it was much more common towards the end. I still think a visit to a nightclub should be a dress up in your gladrags night but I haven't honestly been in one since before 2020! I did always think the no trainers was strict but, that's just what it was. Plus I was always in strappy unwearable heels away.
I guess it may also be down to which clubs I frequented which was mainly like rock/indie/alt nights. Went to a few other "normal" clubs and trainers were fine also, tho did have a mate get turned away since he had trackies on which is fair. IDing folk was pretty harsh, I remember getting turned away once with a valid passport since I looked very slightly different considering it was a passport done when I was 14/15 I guess. We would "suit up" now and again but aye, I'd generally just wear a polo shirt, jeans and high-tops or doc martens. Preferred to be comfortable since it was always sweaty as fuck 😅
There's a difference between dressing up to go out (which I agree with) and dressing up in a way that's uncomfortable, especially for dancing. You shouldn't be going to a club looking like you're going to bed or to the gym (unless it's some kind of theme night), but equally not in a shirt and tie like you're going to a job interview. I guess it's a bit easier for girls, as you have a much wider choice of clothes. The trainers thing really used to annoy me, because shoes have never been comfortable for me and I don't exactly think a good night is having your feet feeling like they are being cut to ribbons. I think it comes from a dated attitude of a nightclub being a meat market rather than somewhere to actually enjoy the music.
Good, not really sure what the point of having some yob in a Ben Sherman shirt and shoes was.
I think the point of the dress code was you had to be planning to go to night club. It stopped pissed people who had just planned on going to the pub from deciding to continue their night in a night club once the pubs shut. I do think it probably worked to some extent as I remember after a night in the pub a few times people saying lets go on to a night club but then realising you were not dressed for it.
There was a notoriously rough and expensive club in my town that everyone wanted to go to when they where pissed but always regretted it. The dress code was strict so it lead to the term "Safety Trainers" So you would be sat in the pub at 1am and someone would say "come on lets go Royals" and you could reply "sorry mate safety trainers"
Interesting hypothesis actually. I do remember having this same conversation in the 90s/early 00s on more than one occasion.
At least they were smartly dressed when they were fighting in the middle of the road opposite the bus stop.
Kids are going out in the fashions of 1999, its fun to see.
Dress codes were shit. As a student, I used to go to clubs that considered themselves more exclusive and they insisted on shoes. The crowd were monoliths, uninspired people dressed pretty much the same. Shoes, jeans, shirt and maybe blazers. Then I got into raving and more alternative scenes with no pretentious dress codes and people expressed themselves far better. So much cooler, and totally unrestrained by a pointless ideal enforced by heavy handed security on a power trip in a bar/club so far up its own arse they forgot it’s supposed to be fun
the nightlife can't afford to turn people away anymore
It’s still crazy to me what you can wear to get in a nightclub these days. When I first started going out you had to have shoes, trousers, and shirt (male).
Depends on the night, that would have been more of a city centre meat market kind of club. I think the idea was to make the place more classy, but they always had the worst issues with violence. The indie and rock clubs with no dress code were fine.
The only dress code at our indie club was you couldn't dress like you was going to one of the towny clubs. It stopped the dick heads who got knocked back from the towny club round the corner trying to get in there instead.
I was definitely more of a shaz (a slightly classer chav) than a goth and once ended up on a night out with my more goth/rock friends. Quite the experience going to a night club in my pink sparkly Chinese style top while everyone else was in 50 shades of black. In fairness - nicest bunch of people ever, even the 6'8" bearded tattooed scary looking bloke who, honestly scared me a bit. He actually brought me a drink and got the DJ to find a song I might know - it was a punk/rock version of Grease. Loved it!
I remember my mate was refused entry to Jilly's in Manchester because he had a shirt on. He just took it off and checked it in the cloakroom, spent the night topless.
Thats some confidence
I used to go to rock clubs multiple times a week back in the early 90s. There was absolutely a dress code but it wasn't enforced by the clubs, more the customers. If it wasn't band shirt, jeans and docs for the guys and gothic dress, corset and fmb's for the girls you'd be denied dance floor access minimum.
Some goth wifey and a skinny bloke with long hair and an Eddie shirt going "nah, this floor is reserved for real rockers!" Whàaaaaaat!
LOL yeah as someone who frequented goth/metal clubs in that period, those guys aren't enforcing shit, lol.
Tactically positioned headbangers and writhing goth chicks in our club. You risk getting hair whipped or moshed aside by possessive biker boyfriend brandishing a Newkey bottle. I vigorously headbutted my friend once. He was coming up while I was going down. There were tears.
It was similar with us, and a struggle depending on what the group wanted to do. Quite a few bars we wanted to pre-drink in may insist on shirt and shoes, some people would want to go on to more a proper night club, you had to decide or hedge your bets for something that could fit in either.
Types of clubs you went to maybe. I like metal, we didn't care about such pointless shit. Looking tidy does not a respectable club make.
Yep, the bouncers at our local club were all bikers - they couldn't give a shit what you were wearing, though as somebody mentioned they would discourage the trendies from coming in if they'd obviously been bounced from the meat market down the road.
Yes, and sometimes the shirt had to be plain, with no checks or stripes if it was (or aspired to be) a fancy club. And not even smart trainers, or sometimes not even loafer/moccasin style, just had to be smart shiny shoes, and there was that time everyone had awful shiny buckles and square toe shoes. Me and my mates hung on to our old school shoes and only wore them for nights out.
Haha imagine the doorman ‘not tonight mate, bit too garish’
"sorry mate not tonight, shirt n shoes only"
"So I have to take my trousers off?"
There's really a regional thing to this too. Go out in a lot of places in the UK and young people still get dressed up in heels. Meanwhile in much of London it's been trainers for years. I really noticed it when I moved down to London after university in about 2012. Within a couple of years all my female friends had transitioned from heels to trainers for most nights out.
Yeah, I was gonna say I spent 2007-2014 going out in London, and the clubs we went to were never shirt types of places. Sure, the wanky places in Mayfair were, but Shoreditch, Brixton etc never gave a fuck what you were wearing.
Yeah exactly. If you were going out in west it would be heels and dresses for the women, shirts and smart shoes for the men. But we virtually never did that. Our going out was pretty much all Shoreditch, Camden, Brixton, Dalston, Peckham. Trainers were definitely the standard thing in those places.
That's a bit later than the period most people are talking about by then. I noticed that even by the mid 00s, I was surprised about how the dress codes have severely watered down from 5-10 years previously.
Weirdly, as someone who was clubbing in the 90s, this seems completely normal.
Depends on the type of club and the music.
As a Gen X who used to go clubbing in the 90's, jeans and trainers were a thing back then too, especially at the more dance oriented clubs.
The kids are coming up from behind. I'm losing my edge. I'm losing my edge to the kids from France and from London. But I was there.
So there's no ludicrous dress code anymore? It was normal for no jeans, no trainers, no anything the bouncer( if they were in a bad mood) deemed not suitable eg brogues, checky shirt
They play the music of 20 years ago for 5 seconds and then another tune from 20 years ago for 5 seconds, and they keep changing it before the good part.
YES! I got in a strop last time I went to a club. Play the bloody song!
TikTok generation can’t keep their attention on one thing for more than 5 seconds.
My friends and I were out drinking recently and walked past the old club we used to go in when we were 17-18 (Tap 'n Tin in Chatham if anyone knows it). We're 36 now. We drunkenly decided to go in and see what it's like. So we walked in and the kids were all lined up on the dancefloor un-ironically doing the macarena. Of all the things I expected to see, that was probably the last.
Tap n Tin was my regular night out too! Aged 33 here. Used to go for the rock and metal nights.
No way, I used to go to Tap every Monday. They had a dubstep/dnb room upstairs and it was the highlight of my week! Not been in there in years though
Another 30s Tap goer checking in. I’d like to thank you all for the good times, the help putting a cone on Tommy Wags head. I went again maybe 6 years ago, the Poundland night was all drinks for 1.20. Outrageous.
Yeah drinks still amazingly cheap! Jaeger bombs for £1.50
You were either a Tap ’n Tin goer if you were “alternative”, or a Amadeus goer if you were cool. Those were the days!
My memories of Amadeus was the amount of broken glass on the dance floor
Another tap n tinner! Amazed how many people from medway are in this thread haha
I was passing time at Curry's once waiting for my wife at the John Lewis'. There was the old camcorder-monitor combo in the window, and a couple of boys were doing Fortnite dances to it. It occurred to me that I would have been beaten up for doing that outside Dixon's in the 90s. Perhaps some changes are better than others.
30s tap goer here too. There's dozens of us
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>techno >barely any booze and lots of drugs Painful memories of being dragged to these sort of clubs by friends a few times. Always a mistake for me.
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Vice versa as in you have to suck ass to be into it?
Yeah I would always be bored out of my mind within half an hour because I find techno music interminably dull. But I'm sure some of my friends would say the same about some of the indie clubs I used to love!
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It does, that's one of the things I've always disliked about it. I have no problem with drugs but I've always taken the view that anything described as 'you have to be on drugs to enjoy it' isn't my bag. But also, aside from that, I think it's just not a form of music that's for me, because the parts of music I like (melodies, vocals, lyrics) aren't really the focus.
Totally respect this. Just wanted to add that there is a big crowd having always enjoyed techno sober - like myself. The music and imagery it evokes is hypnotising enough. I struggle to tolerate anything with lyrics in a dance setting, but am neurodivergent, so maybe this is why.
Same, I go to these events when they play 90’s hardcore/hard house and it’s a pretty cheap night out. It’s usually an older crowd and a really good atmosphere, hardly drink at these events just drop a couple of magic beans and hit the dance floor.
lmao, just a water please mate
Phones everywhere.
Funny you should say that. My sister in law the other day was saying she remembers the days of charging her digital camera for a night out
Yup. I remember the old digital cameras. I wasn’t quite at clubbing age, but I was at house parties and pubs that didn’t ID. Haha
I used to put film in my camera for a night out
The early digital camera era was so sad to look back on. Entire swathes of my late childhood and teens are reduced to as many too-dark, washed out, VGA and 1mp images as could fit on a 8mb MMC card.
This frustrates me about pretty much any event now. Yes, take a video or two and a few photos to remember the night, but don’t stick glued to the phone for hours trying to please people online who couldn’t care less.
Was a parent helper at a school pta disco recently. Key stage 2 (so 7 - 11 y/o). Most kids were just having the usual overexcited fun. But a decent proportion spent almost the whole time on their phone.
You are describing 7-11 years old very well.
Except Fabric which is one of the best things about it. They give you a sticker to put over your phones lens. Idc if it's a 'bait spot' the stickers and the air con alone are enough to get me going back.
Call me out of touch but what is a 'bait spot'?
Obvious / mainstream. Its mostly bad due to the type of crowd it attracts, but it’s generally fine if you avoid the big name djs.
Where is that? In London?
Yes, London.
Weird. Me and my friends were in a club last night and it was mostly 18 - 25 year olds, I didn't see a single phone. Not even one, for the entire night. The only time a phone was visible was at the bar as people were using them to pay for drinks. I'm not Gen Z, so decided to ask a few people on this and they all said they keep their phones away because people don't want to appear on social media.
I'm in my 40s and have noticed that the youngsters today have learned from my generations mistakes in terms of sharing on social media, which I am glad to see. My generation were the first with social media and the amount of over sharing by some of my friends/acquaintances was embarrassing especially for their kids. I knew some folk that gave Facebook a blow by blow account of their child's potty training journey that was just weird. Phones are a part of life now and people need to deal with it.
That’s good to hear! So glad my drunken exploits were never documented on the internet for all to see haha
Imagine being off your tits and being in the background of someone's random tiktok.. Bring back the 90s/00s
When I had a job where that could not happen, we used to travel to europe for clubbing. They banned phones pretty early on and had a real culture of not taking pictures. It is pretty wild and lawless in some places! All behind me now.
That's something I never considered. I don't ever remember looking at my phone in a nightclub. Was too busy enjoying the dancing.
Extremely expensive. Difficult to find one that's a nice level of busy too. There'll be one or two that are absolutely rammed and everywhere else will be dead.
I've found the opposite actually. In the era I used to go clubbing, the cost of drinks were a level above what they would cost in pubs. When beer was £2 in pubs it was £3 in clubs. When it was £3 in pubs it was £4.50 in clubs. On the few occasions I have been to clubs in the last 10 years I have been surprised by the fact that drinks have been more or less the same price as the surrounding pubs.
That just speaks to how expensive pubs have become tbh lol Struggle to go out anywhere and get a cider for anything below a fiver unless you're in Spoons.
This is seems to have been the case since covid. Usually you could go somewhere and it’s pretty alright, now it seems like you’re either in a place that’s really bollocks because it’s sparsely populated or go somewhere and not be able to move. People seem to pick one space now and stick to it.
So many venues closed during covid but demand has returned to pre-Covid levels. Result is fewer choices that are all way busier than they used to be.
I had this last Friday night in Leeds, proper weird. Went to about 4 different bars, all oddly quiet for a Friday night, ended up in Jake’s bar on call lane and realised the reason the others were quiet was because everyone in Leeds was in that small basement room lmao it was absolutely heaving. There I was thinking Jake’s bar stopped being cool about 10 years ago
Floors are still sticky and they still stink of piss for the most part.
That's rubbish. I don't even have to leave home for that experience...
And the reason they stink of piss, is coz they don't stink of cigarettes anymore
That was my first thought. I remember in the 00s a couple of my best friends were Irish. Ireland banned cigarettes in pubs a couple of years before we did and I asked then what it was like and if it was better/worse or whatever. They said the main difference was that you were constantly smelling farts.
and ppls B.O from the sweaty dancing.
I wonder if that's why my generation tended to put on so much cologne that cats were passing out in gardens as they walked past. You could smell some of the guys from the next street, and it was usually something really sickeningly sweet, like Joop! or Le Male..
If anything they smell even more of piss and booze, cos in the past that was masked by the smell of fags. Post 2007 clubbing gen’s will never know the familiar feeling of a lit cigarette brushing across your hand as you squeeze through to the bar 🥹
Everyone seems to be on cocaine now, maybe I was just naive before but it seems very open now.
Well drugs seem to have stayed the same price in the last few years, alcohol? My gosh it’s become a rich persons drug
Naive as we all were lol. I'm 32 now and I see younger people being all nonchalant exactly how I used to be and thinking I was hiding it but it's quite obvious if someone's on something lol. Maybe it's just because I've been there though.
Hahahaha. Yes, cocaine in clubs is a very recent trend.
You're asking Reddit? 😭
Bouncer here. We joke about our current customers being grey house people. Office job, small yappy dog, laminate flooring, open plan ground floor, cycling, gaming and they live in a grey painted house. Bonus points for the loft conversion. Honestly, It’s like these fuckers are printed out of a machine, they’re all exactly the same! We’re not sure where these fuckers came from, but they’re super lame, their kids are narcissistic twats and they sucked the fun out of everything.
You've probably heard it already but aye... [A song about these grey loving folk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9n0_5p8XKo) Don't quite get it myself, I guess conformity is comfortable? Not saying I'm a "non-conformist" of course I do a bunch of shite everyone else does, I'm pretty basic. Just insane when they all literally do the same things, same haircut, clothes, car, hobbies, house decor, dog breed, dog name, child name etc etc. Also love how they wear skinny jeans now after ripping on folk years ago for wearing them.
I'm not letting you in until you tell me about your flooring?
Flooring would not come close to the most boring conversations I have to endure. It’s the fucking dog worship that does me. What the hell is that about? It’s really weird. Why are you talking to the doorman about your dog? You all say exactly the same shit, too. It’s so fucking boring!
Sounds like you work in a weird nightclub.
If they are anything like my parents covid lobotomised their social skills and replaced it with dog talk. All their socialising is via dog now.
Reminded me of [this meme](https://dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net/2023/08/28/deanomeme.jpg)
Last time I went I was 26 and felt way too old to be there. Then I remembered that my firends started to go out at 16 years old and all made sense.
If you feel to old you’re probably going to the wrong places ?
Ahaha, it is also just not my thing, so all places are wrong. I went to Pacha in Ibiza when it was at its peak and didn't like it. More than age, it is the type of people.
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i think thats also due to the fact theyre less busy so theyve bended the rules on who they let in. during the busy times in the past it felt very strict, nowadays to make ends meet they let ppl in with pajamas on. i also remember how tough it used to be to get in if it was 6-10 of us guys, nowdays they dont seem to bat an eyelid.
I went for my first "big" night out in about three years to Underworld in Camden recently and drinks were literally £8 a pop. How the fuck are gen-Z ever going to know what it feels like to wait all night for Love Will Tear Us Apart to come on only to cry through it all because you broke up with your girlfriend last week?!
they take garrys and vape. no booze required.
Drinks in clubs were always expensive, I assume they pre drink the way we did and only have to buy a couple out? It wasn’t uncommon to be paying £5+ for a drink at a club 10+ years ago
There did used to be places where you could get pound pints 15ish yrs ago, pints of what.....im not quite sure...
Your small local towns nightclub? Probably pretty dead but as far as major city nights out go it’s still the exact same in terms of busyness that it was before. Things are slightly more expensive of course but not to the level that some of the people in this comment section are suggesting, unless they’re London based which is always the outlier. People overstate the use of phones too, aside from people in the smoking area you will rarely see someone with a phone out unless they’re taking a photo of their mates which was no different to people with digital cameras or club reps taking photos for their promotional posters. The one difference is that the smoking area will smell biblical because most of the kids vape as opposed to smoking fags so there’s a bonus.
Of course they’re more expensive, everything is. It’s pretty much the same as when you were younger but the music is shit (ie not what I grew up on 😂) and young people look really young! You will find yourself going ‘is he fuck 18’ several times during the night.
I’m 40, single and in a couple of football teams so still go out quite a lot. There’s lots and lots of cocaine and drinks are far more expensive, I long for the days of old when there used to be offers on drinks for £1 or something lol One good thing is that I can just wear cargos and a t-shirt now rather than uncomfortable heels and a dress! I’m kinda not looking forward to my sisters wedding because I’ll have to buy ALLLLL the pieces of my outfit as I don’t even own heels anymore! 😂
On a related note, I'd like to know what consists of a "rave" these days and what music is played now. Went to a few in the early - mid 90s when it was all breakbeat hardcore, and later on tended towards drum & bass, gabber and happy hardcore. Often with alcohol not present or rarely used for obvious reasons... Is it still much the same, but with newer evolved versions of the various strands of "rave" music, or just a more generic term for a party (illegal or not)?
I had exactly this chat with a Gen Z colleague yesterday. She said she’d been to a rave at the weekend. I got all excited and asked whether it was a legal one, or in a field. She said no, not a field, and yes, legal. So, in a warehouse? Under some railway arches? It was in a bar. Her friend was DJing. NOT A RAVE. (I didn’t say this though.)
a lot of time nowadays ppl say rave to differentiate it from trash cattlemarket clubs also 'the dance' but that has slightly different connotations what used to be called raves (field / warehouse / etc. are now usually called free parties in UK at least :)
Well aye, words do tend to change meaning over the course of decades, particularly when the thing they used to refer to barely exists.
Most of the raves these days are drum n bass, and they look and sound amazing. The sound quality is better and the lighting is far more advanced than anything we ever had in the 90's. The festivals are off the charts. Me and my mates went to boomtown festival and the experience was literally life changing. It takes a lot to impress someone who's done everything from Hacienda to Space in Ibiza. I lived the entire 90's club / rave scene from early breakbeat hardcore to that moment when ferry Corsten dropped binary binary for the first time at gate crasher, peak uplifting trance.
Only people who call parties raves haven't been to a rave! All those genres you mentioned are still played, lots of psytrance around where I am too
I was talking to someone about going out and she said she went to raves and got drunk, and i couldn’t get my head around it. We did not get drunk at raves. The I realised the meaning of the word had clearly changed!
I mean you still get raves in fields but there are Warehouse raves as events in all kinds of music not just "rave music": Acid, house, Techno, Liquid DnB, Jump-up etc. As a fan of this type of music I have attended a fair few. Alcohol is there. but everyone is still off their face on something else so they bars are usually just handing out Water and Chewing Gum. Obviously phones are everywhere. Still just as sweaty. Raining from the roof.
Not sure if I was just oblivious 15 years ago but these days there seems to be way more cocaine. The really shitty places where you'd get a drink for £1 seem to have been replaced by really shitty places where the drinks are very slightly cheaper than everywhere else, the clubs themselves are as expensive as they always were. The men dress like they're at a house party, the women dress the same as always but with trainers instead of heals. Also seems to be harder to find a decent kebab before heading home. Everyone seems really young but lets face it, we're just old. Otherwise pretty much the same.
I'm seeing cocaine mentioned a fair bit on this thread. Has cocaine become a lot cheaper and easier to access? I literally never have taken drugs so I'm clueless about any drugs and how to get hold of it, how much it costs etc.
I don't touch the stuff either but I've noticed even at work parties and team nights out people are on. I think its easier to get now with dealers being on Instagram/snap ect. no need to meet some dodgy guy on a street corner any more.
Probs easier to access because dealers sell through Snapchat and WhatsApp and advertise their menus on social media so people just order what they want through a simple message and it’s delivered I don’t do drugs but I’m in uni and every group chat has at least 2 dealers advertising in there and posting their menus
Not cheaper, they've just stayed relatively consistent in price over the years. Which, when everything else has doubled or trebled, adds a new dimension to the appeal
everyone is very young. or you're too old
I'm in my mid 40s and still go to a rave every couple of months. Last time I went to a normal nightclub was about 4 years ago though. To be honest, they are much better now, less cheesy music, door staff are actually there to provide a service rather than cause fights, they also have people who just walk around checking on people, drinks were expensive but not excessively so, overall a good night was had by all.
Do bouncers/door staff still let in and prey on groups of giggling girls the wrong side of 18 and refuse entry to obviously of age people ? Had more than my fair share of arguments with them pervy fucks on the door finding a reason to not let you in. The 90’s night clubs 🙄
Yes this is still rife
Nightclub DJ here. Almost 40. Been doing it for ten years. They're noticably quieter all-round. Saturdays are still great but everything else has dropped off. When I first started, Fridays were slightly quieter than Saturdays. Now they're much quieter. Price-wise, they've risen a lot. Hell of a lot of pressure on venues when it comes to costs. The days of vodka and cokes being £1.50 through the week and £2.50 at weekends are gone. Expect somewhere between £3.80 and £4.50 now. Music-wise, you'll still hear a lot of songs from 10 years ago. If you can get through a night without hearing Levels, Timber or Waka-Waka you're doing well. The bouncer industry has been cleaned up massively. They're all wearing SIA badges on their sleeves and acting professionally now. To quote one bouncer I used to work with, "I miss the days when you could drag cunts into the fire exit and give them a good kicking". Worst they'll do is put their arm through yours and drag you outside. Have only seen one customer punched to the floor by a bouncer in the past ten years. That was a Glaswegian woman, and although it sounds horrible to say a woman deserved to be knocked to the floor with one punch, she really did deserve it. She was asked politely to leave the club several times and started shouting at the bouncers "Do you know who I am? Do you know who my family are? You're fucking dead. There's a bounty on your head and you're not making it home tonight." Started crying as soon as she hit the floor, and obviouisly nothing happened to those bouncers.
Vapes. So many vapes.
They're still shit. You're not missing too much.
They were always shit. It was part of the charm.
They're a shadow of their former selves. About 2010 really was the beginning of the end for them. Especially since they banned a lot of the drink offers.
lot's of drunk women in their 50s reliving their youth. All the actual young people are at home watching netflix and wondering how they are going to pay their rent.
There's coke everywhere
Closed. I've frequented a bar/club a handful of times since Covid and generally it hasnt been particularly busy. Much broader age mix than my 'heyday' but a lot less people overall.
Get on a plane and have a night out in Holland. Sound systems are massive. Take your pick. A hardcore party, raw hardstyle, euphoric Hardstyle, early rave. Non stop parties. Uk is no good
Started clubbing in 2002 and had to wear a shirt and shoes back then. Clubbing nowadays at nearly 40 is one of the last things I’d ever want to do
The last time I went to one was in my early 30's, and it felt like the under 18 disco scene from the inbetweeners. Everyone looked about 15. That was the moment I realised I was just old. I had become one of those blokes that you'd always see stood around the edge of the dance floor, looking weird and a bit dodgy. Now it's a bottle of Red in a quiet country pub with an open fire on a winters day for me.... ahhhhhh bliss.
If you ask my girlfriend they are filled with young desperate girls who are half naked and walk around begging for attention and will approach and male they see. The more the male seems taken the larger the attraction from these young, desperate, half naked women. As you can tell I am not allowed near these for the fear of being attacked and ripped apart by the voracious females that prowl these places.
Broad question. Your experience will depend entirely on the venue, the music, crowd etc. Is it just a regular nightclub night or are you going to see a particular artist/DJ? If it's the latter, generally expect a more appreciative atmosphere, a more mature crowd (depends on the artist) but probably more drugs. The former will be more drunken antics, less focus on the music, probably a younger crowd etc. Your enjoyment of these things will depend on your tolerance for all of the above.
Last time I was in a club in the UK was 2008, when the credit crunch had hit hard. It was in Cardiff on a Saturday night, drink were seriously dirt cheap and the place was fucking empty. Last time I was in a club at all was 2016 in a small town in northern Ukraine, which was way busier than that one in Cardiff. A round of drinks I bought cost about a fiver, which included two draught beers, a cocktail, two cans of a red bull and a 70cl bottle of vodka for the table. These days I just go to raves, because if I went to a club I'd just feel like an old man yelling at clouds with the price/phones/vapes/etc and don't get me started on trend in djing the last few years of playing about 10 seconds of a song before banging out the next one and the next one.
Last time I went I felt like a chaperone at a school disco. But then the DJ put the Vengaboys on and all the over 35s stormed the dancefloor for three minutes of euphoria. After that they went back to dismal melody-free autotuned RnB so it emptied out.
i havent been in one in years but i would guess they are different to back in my day. Today is (probably) all about getting the right photos on instagram
I loved it in the 80s before the whole rave scene took off. Only been once recently. A small place. I did feel that people were thinking "what's that old creepy guy doing here" so I left. It was actually a very nice place, emphasis on the music, not drinking yourself into oblivion.
What was wrong with the rave scene?
Nothing - just a personal preference. I just didn't like the music or the emphasis on drugs. it was also too popular. I prefer niche interests.
Much like every pub... it's really expensive and the cigarette smoke no longer covers the smell of Redbull and farts.
Went a few times over xmas with some old mates. Everything our way seems to be catering to the 30+ crowd instead nowadays as the kids just arent going out. Was a lot more chilled than it used to be back in the day. No dickhead bouncers, no panicking about dress codes, no queues (was gong to say no lines but everyone knows thats no accuracte) I didnt hate it Oh and the music for 75% of it hasnt changed since I started going out in like 05. I joked that we'd be hearing fatman scoop any second then on it came.
What I don’t get is now you don’t go out until half 11, ten years ago I was half way to a donner kebab or battered turkey stick (don’t ask) at that time. Now I’m in bed for half 11, if I’m having a late one.