The Duke's Experience
On Saturday I missed out on going to see Pirates Of The Caribbean 2, a film described by Mark Kermode (on The Late Review) as ‘symptomatic of the death of Western civilization’. Although, to be fair, you could say that about anything. I went to Duke’s in Chelmsford on Saturday, a club which was notorious in my youth, but which I have never actually been to, until now, at the age of forty.
When it is, to say the very least, unnecessary.
I was drawn in by the promise of Decadence, the bar that’s attached to the club, which I’d heard was a far more laid back place than the club itself. Not so; on this occasion at least, it bore an even closer resemblance to Hell than Duke’s proper did. Weaving my way through the gyrating young people, I subsided onto a sofa, and immediately felt like someone’s great-aunt, cupping a hand over my ear to try and catch people’s comments over the music.
Eventually, I returned to the club. Dave and I stared at the dance floor through a screen that kept going opaque for mysterious reasons. We were like scientists observing an atomic blast from behind a radiation screen. People were dancing to - among other things - an unimaginative Bronski Beat remix masquerading as an entirely new track by an entirely new artist. Tell me why, indeed. When 3:00 came and the place showed no sign of shutting, we realized that we would have to intervene in order to stop Jane and Chad dancing. Luckily, we were able to deprogram them without too much difficulty, and leave. Never, I hope, to return.
The next day, Vicki mentioned that we could have sat on a balcony above the dance floor and ‘looked down on people’. I said we didn’t need a balcony to do that.
When it is, to say the very least, unnecessary.
I was drawn in by the promise of Decadence, the bar that’s attached to the club, which I’d heard was a far more laid back place than the club itself. Not so; on this occasion at least, it bore an even closer resemblance to Hell than Duke’s proper did. Weaving my way through the gyrating young people, I subsided onto a sofa, and immediately felt like someone’s great-aunt, cupping a hand over my ear to try and catch people’s comments over the music.
Eventually, I returned to the club. Dave and I stared at the dance floor through a screen that kept going opaque for mysterious reasons. We were like scientists observing an atomic blast from behind a radiation screen. People were dancing to - among other things - an unimaginative Bronski Beat remix masquerading as an entirely new track by an entirely new artist. Tell me why, indeed. When 3:00 came and the place showed no sign of shutting, we realized that we would have to intervene in order to stop Jane and Chad dancing. Luckily, we were able to deprogram them without too much difficulty, and leave. Never, I hope, to return.
The next day, Vicki mentioned that we could have sat on a balcony above the dance floor and ‘looked down on people’. I said we didn’t need a balcony to do that.
posted by martin at 3:03 AM
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