What is Bristol like nowadays, especially the dance / club scene?

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

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I was inspired by @Junglist who posted in the Bad Dates thread about going to the Thekla. This was a nightclub-boat in Bristol.

I now live in Stafford but I was in Bristol for 50 weeks from early Oct 2000 to late Sep 2001 on a work placement in between uni years 2 and 3. This made it a sandwich course.

I lived just off Filton Avenue as a lodger. Basically I had my own room then shared the rest of the house with a landlady. There was a Co-Op right by me, a library, plus a barbershop, a taxi rank an off-license and a few pubs, but my go-to pub was King George VI. Filton Avenue was served by bus numbers 70 and 73, going into the city centre, and the far end of route 70/73 being Cribbs Causeway shopping centre. I liked the city centre and the seafront.

I went to around 10 nightclubs in my year there, most walkable from each other, except for the Depot which was a taxi job. Sadly I never got the chance to go to the Thekla but it was one of the clubs I really wanted to go to. The 3 big dance venues were Creation, The Rock and Cafe Blue. Creation was my favourite club as it hosted Slinky and it had a great laser system with mirror balls. The 2 smaller dance venues were the Maze, the Depot and of course the legendary Lakota which I believe is still running now! The Works was a cheesy nightclub but it had good production and aesthetics. The other cheese venue was Evolution at the far end of a pier called the Watershed if memory serves. I wasn't keen on Evolution as I didn't like the atmosphere and the drinks were expensive at £3.50 a bottle, when the normal club rate was £3 back then.

The September 11th attacks took place near the end of my placement, with about 10 days remaining. I worked in the library and we were told by the boss to watch the footage on a big 48" flat screen TV (unusual and expensive back then) then got sent home early. Bristol was eerily quiet in those last 10 days especially the clubs in my final weekend of clubbing.

I like Stafford and can now go clubbing up and down the country via hotel / city breaks, but I miss Bristol and I still get the odd dream that I'm still living there as a lodger. I miss the people too but I certainly don't miss the work due to office politics. My other nostalgia / association with Bristol is that I was madly into Final Fantasy 7 and 8 on the PC, so when I wasn't working or clubbing, I 'lived' in those 2 games.

Bristol had its own local magazine called "Venue" which sometimes had a cover CD with decent tracks on it from local dance acts.
 
Oh dear
I was there from 1998 to 2001. I remember club IQ that became (iirc) creation in 1999/2000. This is a blast from the past then some. I met someone who is so young they were born on my birthday so I know I was put clubbing that night in the works. Still think I was spiked by the barman I annoyed in creation when he covered me in glass and beer when he threw a bottle of beer in a bin and it smashed and went all over me.

I'm old
FluffySheep
 
Lakota is still running Tribe of Frog every month, if you're into psytrance.

Other than that, I remember seeing Simon Patterson at Syndicate - looks like that closed down back in 2015 :(

Do people not go to proper clubs anymore? That seems to be around the same time as Air in Birmingham closed as well :(
 
Lakota is pretty much a Bristolian establishment of rave culture. Spent many spangled nights in there. But we had everything from free parties, to The Black Swan up to places like Marble Factory and when Motion was a Skatepark first and a rave location at night. Tripping up on the half pipes as you're out of it lol.

Absolutely loved Air in Birmingham. The upstairs always felt far too nice for a rave with those padded seats. Though I think the grotty but loveable Custard Factory was my favourite place to visit in Brum. The o2 Academy was much better than the one in Bristol though. felt huge!

I tend not to go raving any more. At 34 I now feel like I am in the camp of 'who's that old geezer' unless it's a day time event.

Never went to Syndicate or any of the 'out out' clubs unless I was a different group of friends. It was never really my jam. Instead you'd catch me on a Wednesday night at a Run event lol.

Now Bristol for me just has rubbish traffic, expensive houses and questionable accents but I do love it here still.
 
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Stafford? I worked in stone and used to go out there sometimes, was pretty dead just a few clubs and bars, but can't expect too much from a small place!

Thekla in Bristol is still going.. just Google nightclubs and you'll see what's good. Only been to Bristol once and it was great, probably my favourite city in UK
 
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Junglist said:
Now Bristol for me just has rubbish traffic, expensive houses and questionable accents but I do love it here still.
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Oi, nothing wrong with the Bristol accent, it's gurt lush! :p

I used to go to a lot of Godskitchen events at Air when I lived in Bath, then sitting very drunk in New Street, or the MacDonalds in Stephenson Place, waiting for the first train back down to Temple Meads. Had some "interesting" encounters, including a guy just pulling his trousers down and curling one out in the MacDonalds, and some trying to get into WHsmith through the window (not trying to break in, they were just so ****** they missed the door :cry:)

Of course, typically as soon as I move up here they closed the place :mad:
 
I am surpised Oddesy didn't get a mention on that list, although my only time spent there was when underage, thought it was cool and hadn't quite found my love of rock. I am pretty sure there is still a club in the building. Didn't even realises places like this were still a thing these days. I was more drawn to places like the Bierkeller / Fleece but occassionaly did get dragged to eovlution etc. Yuk yuk yuk!
 
Nice to know there are a few clubbers in 'ere :-)

Where were Syndicate and Oddesy?

@Junglist - I'm 46 and still go to day and night raves. I look out for old franchises like Amnesia, Sundissential, Passion etc and go to those. Then I don't feel out of place. A new(ish) franchise is Trancecoda and you can't go wrong with that either as that's an older crowd too. The one place where I did feel out of place age wise was Cream in Liverpool in Feb 2024. It was like as if I have gatecrashed a 6th form party! Left after a couple of hours.

@dacads - yeah Stafford doesn't exactly smack of nightlife :p We've had the one main nightclub on Newport Road, decades old now and it changes its name every 10 years or so. Then we have the usual late night bars like Spoons, Yates, Vodka Revolution etc.

@Alibaba99 - it was the pub at the end of Filton Avenue. We just called it "the George".

Good to hear that Thekla and Lakota are still going.

After a bit of digging around, it seemed that the Rock became the Bristol Academy, now part of the O2 group. Creation got turned into flat :( That ****** me off when that happens to good venues. Looks like Cafe Blue got turned into a Laser Quest type place.
 
Pawnless Endgame said:
@Junglist - I'm 46 and still go to day and night raves. I look out for old franchises like Amnesia, Sundissential, Passion etc and go to those. Then I don't feel out of place. A new(ish) franchise is Trancecoda and you can't go wrong with that either as that's an older crowd too. The one place where I did feel out of place age wise was Cream in Liverpool in Feb 2024. It was like as if I have gatecrashed a 6th form party! Left after a couple of hours.

Good to hear that Thekla and Lakota are still going.

After a bit of digging around, it seemed that the Rock became the Bristol Academy, now part of the O2 group. Creation got turned into flat :( That ****** me off when that happens to good venues. Looks like Cafe Blue got turned into a Laser Quest type place.
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Yeah I don't mind the day time ones like LSTD and Tokyo World. I actually used to live fairly close to Eastville Park so they were great to go to then walk home after! Having a little toddler now puts me off of raving like I used to, I'd be next to useless the following day lol.

Yup, they're going strong. A distant family relative (well, my mums second cousin) actually owned Blue Mountain until he sold it off a few years back. That road used to be great. You could go to Lakota or walk down the road for Clockwork/Blue Mountain.

It must've been called The Rock a long time ago? I went to my first ever Gig there when it was the Carling Academy (Gig was C.K.Y) and then a handful of years later I went to my first rave, legally, there and it was a One Nation. Not too sure when it turned into O2 but must be best part of a decade+ ago.
 
Alibaba99 said:
I must be getting old. I used to go to what became the O2 Academy when it was still the ABC Cinema.
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I don't remember that (might have gone there as a kid, but it was usually the 'Showcase' one we went to....), but I did used to go to the ice rink there as a kid, was a huge surprise the first time I went to a gig at the O2 and realised it was the same place :)

Edit: and used to go to SK8+Ride every week for a few years as a teen, not been there since it was motion/marble factory!
 
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They did overlap. The Showcase opened in '94 and there was much excitement for Bristol finally getting a modern multiplex, and the ABC closed in '97.

The ABC was brilliantly old school. If you pre-ordered tickets you went through a separate door, bypassing the queue that snaked out the cinema and up the hill to the VW garage, and there was a member of staff holding envelopes containing the tickets.
 
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I always liked Bristol for the fact that it’s the only place in the UK where DNB events are seemingly more popular than House, Techno and all the other four to the floor genres. Bristol mandem love breakbeats.
 
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I at uni in Bristol around the same years before moving to Liverpool. There used to be a good scene in both but it's slowly died a death in Liverpool. I'd completely forgotten about Slinky, but it was great at Creation. One of the best nights I've had was seeing Lab4 in Lakota!
 
I've just found Slinky on Facebook but sadly they only seem to acknowledged their existence in Bournemouth, which is where they started out. The FB group must be run by someone different from Slinky first time round. Here is a flyer that I had hanging around and scanned in. It definitely says Bristol on it.

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I know a few people who are playing on the 28th September at the underground which I think is the carpark under the galleries? Should be a good night
 
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