All sorts of time has passed since lockdown began. It is 30 years since I attended my first House Music club in Blackpool. 4 years since I went to Notting Hill Carnival, 18 months since I have been abroad, 6 months since I went to a pub, 15 months since I died my hair, 2 months since I attended some online sessions with a group of artists called Small Radical Acts, 3 days since I entered an open call about lockdown, 20 mins since I watched a documentary on the the dangers of social media, the division it creates and inauthentic human connections our brain thinks it creates, 3 minutes since I checked my phone.
Shared experience has become zoom sessions, socially distanced coffee dates, the public being extremely concerned about safety, others not seeming to be bothered. I keep thinking about what this time would be like if I was 18 again. Trying to find one of those illegal raves that were happening across Lancashire circa 88-90. Yep I missed them, leaving school in 1990 ensured that I missed the very beginning of the pre commercialisation of dance music but still managed to access some of the notable places such as Sequins, Hacketts, Monroes, Legends in Warrington I even got to a couple of Southport Beach parties through 90 -93.
I keep thinking what would it be like if what was happening now was happening then. Now people unable to access nightlife, theatre, nightclubs or only with strict guidelines, no singing, no dancing…………. I know there has been a resurgence of young folks putting on illegal parties. That young people find a way, humans find a way. That humans need shared experience, its what brings us together that physical experience of a gig, a performance, a rave, religion when we are all in the moment together? But indeed we should be mindful of how to stay safe and respectful of our fellow beings.
Humans take risks.
The story of dance music in The UK is told often from the city or the South. But Blackpool holds its own stories. The Mill folk who travelled to Blackpool in its hey day somehow swapped roles with Blackpool as we began to travel over to East Lancashire.
there is a quiet space in Blackpool. A space that had been a nightclub, a cinema, a market, a bar. The space holds a tangible atmosphere of a thousand people passing, through, dancing, talking, exchanging a place that once staged Ms Blackpool. A place that has aspiration for shared experience but not in the same way as 1990. But as before something that comes from the people, a DIY culture, embracing, inviting.
Site of Shaboo Nightclub 1990. Photograph taken in lockdown 2020