Why Ben misses his groove.

Youth:

- Trawl sites like trance.nu, hardtofindrecords.com etc for songs that I had heard and by some miracle remembered, either through a near comatose friend pressing down on my ear (it improves communication in loud environments apparently) or climbing and grasping at the DJ booth, like a zealot trying to touch Jesus on the mound.

‘Yeah, nice one mate, banging choons yeah, oi what’s the name of this? What? Yeah, wicked. Blindin set mate.’

And so it would go every Friday night.


- Before venturing to Peach, Heaven, Turnmills, SE1 etc there was the obstacle of getting in: We were all around sixteen and still held to youthful visages. To fool the towering sentinels at the door involved getting an acceptance letter to a university from someone’s elder sibling and bringing the document to some document office. I forget which.

- In King’s Cross we tried to get a European student card. Going in groups, we all prayed to the Trance gods to be seen by the attendant who was obviously new and didn’t have the best grasp of English.

“You want this for travel, yes? And you definitely eighteen, yes?”

And so it would go.

- Waiting in the queue was always a joy. Our fake I.Ds secured us entry, the only trouble we might encounter is a bouncer on a particularly assholey day.

- One such example: It was my birthday. We went to Turnmills to celebrate, it was their birthday too. We queued for an eternity. Turnmills has a system that only allows a few people in a cordined area just in front on the main door. Cattle control.


- The majority of my friends arrived in this area with me. We talked to a bouncer who had a big scar across his eye, like a pirate. We spoke at length about the previous night’s shootings.

“Thing we that lot is, you can’t do nothing. What can you do against a shooter? Get ‘em in the ring and I’d have ‘em, these guys wiv the guns can’t fight for shit, I’d destroy ‘em.”

- After the cloakroom and the initial round of ‘beans,’ I noticed that two of my friends were missing. I found out later that the bouncer hadn't allowed either in. Maybe our talk about the shootings had left him feeling emasculated with a strong need to, ‘sort someone aaaout.’

- He had told them that tonight was a twenty-one and over night. They protested to no avail. Not one to give up, they went to the back of the queue and swapped jackets and attempted to style their hair differently. Yeah, I know.

- Upon reaching the same bouncer he uttered, ‘You fink I’m a fucking mug?’

- After, what I’m sure was some tactile negotiations, they were allowed to join the birthday celebrations. Ironically, I lost my friends and ended up talking to a middle-aged accountant that had also lost her friends. Good times.

- Inevitably the music changed so radically to what I’d come in to raving with and the closure of Peach made the prospect of clubbing at best feel clichéd and at worst a betrayal to those memories. Bastards, bring back my weekend!