Nostalgia. I was 15/16 but early puberty had blessed me a growth spurt. Out mate John had a scanner/printer and for a few quid he spent hours knocking up blag photocopies of our passports with fake ages on them. Bouncers were pretty lenient in town then and they would laugh at our shit fake ID but let us into most of the lower level clubs after giving us a bit of shit.
Up the top end we used to go to Streets or sometimes the oh five but that came later really, they weren't really into the fake ID stuff, it was more about how you carried yourself. That was one of the tougher places and tbf at 15 we probably weren't ready. If we were lucky we'd get into Society- you had to get there early if you were underage- but most of the time we'd go Streets or the Barcelona.
Barca had this rotating bar in the middle which used to really fuck me up after a few drinks. I always associated it with the Alan Braxe tune "Running," which was a big anthem in there, so i guess this is 2000/2001 at this point. The filtered disco sound was big to us then and would butt up against these big piano tunes and the commercial tunes as well obviously. We weren't old enough to be listening to the real undeground gear then.
It would have been xmas 2000. I was working in Wade Smith Jr which was an offshoot of the big shop at the time. I probably started in September, it was my first real job, clothes discount in all their shops, all I do is buy clothes, records and drugs, clubs at the weekend on these fake IDs.
I'd had decks for a few years then- me dad had bought me a new set when i was 14 after i tried using his old ones but they were fucked. As there is a big house scene back home and always had been he was into it too, and would buy some records he liked so i would do a tape for his car, loads of big vocal house tunes and more bait stuff that ended up in the charts like Stardust, Needin U, Big Love obviously. Stuff like the house remix of Space Cowboy i wasn't a massive fan of but he was/is so he would buy them & I'd play them
(much later i had a decent little mixtape graft going on where you'd pick the tunes and pay me a few quid and I'd do you a tape, i was 16/17 i guess)
Anyway it was the xmas do at Wades and i think we went to Caesers Palace first, basically the whole shop, and after that we end up on the bar crawl and head to Barcelona afterwards. I wish i remember their names- i am shit for that- but me and a couple of the lads were on the sniff for a tablet or two but couldn't get any. The bouncers in there were harsh and it was more of a lemo venue tbh.
After a while i got talking to a lad in the bogs and he managed to sort us five mitsis so i did that, passed them out. Later i am coming up, its probably half 12-1, and this tune comes on, Big Love. It's actually quite old by then but i knew it and one of the girls from the shop is near us; i am singing, she is singing. I think is right, let's have a dance.
Now, I didn't know her fella was in there that night; apparently he had been out with us in one of the bars before but we were having a boot and i hadn't really been paying attention. So i wouldn't say i am getting touchy or anything- there's no #metoo in this story- but we always had a flirt, I'm on a mitsi, it is what it is.
Next thing you know he's behind me, grabs my shoulder to pull me away from her. You turn around instinctively in these scenarios, he's had a sniff, and he throws a right hook straight away off the back of what he thinks is me trying to crack on with his girl.
As there's a big group of us it gets broken up quite quickly and we get pulled apart- I never even landed a dig there- and soon enough the bouncers are over and we get turfed out. Me, him, couple of the lads, i think he got a dig off the bouncers as well. I didn't but they did have me in one of them chokes where your elbow is right on the windpipe for a bit.
She follows him out, couple of the girls as well. Jonnnn what the fuck are you doin we were just dancin
Anyway it did get settled soon enough and we went our seperate ways. That night i ended up going the Sunrise for the first time and we managed to get a couple more tablets in the queue - i dry dropped one of them before we went in & still remember the come up. Sunrise was more out of hours and everything was always played at +8, it was madness to a young kid like me as an early experience.
Stayed there till closing, left, and as i was walking home i remember getting approached by a brass on Hope St who looked like the milky bar kid, honestly. My head was too scrambled to shrug her off coherently so i just kept walking & i dont think i even managed to get a taxi till I'd walked 3/4 miles.
A month or two later i got a new job and i remember seeing her in town a few months later when i was wearing a shirt and that. I cracked onto her a bit but she wasn't having it, i was only a kid.
True story
