NIGHTCLUBS CLOSING

Friends, the UK has seen a significant number of nightclubs close in recent years. Over the past four years the UK has lost 37% of its clubs, which works out to 480 nightclubs closed since 2020. In the last six months the rate of closures has increased to three per week. Northern Soul has, admittedly, seen a resurgence, but even so they’re now predicting that by 2034 they’ll be no nightclubs left at all.

To you and me this is unbelievable, but I half understand why this happening. Others may have a different opinion, and of course you’re entitled to it, but I think I can outline the decline in nightclubs down to three factors:

1) First of all, and this is a little harsh, crap DJ’s. Oh, I’m sure the Ibiza DJ’s are playing to thousands, and they’re something else, but here we’re talking about the clubs we could catch the bus to in the early 70s. These are the type of clubs that are disappearing. My son manages a bar (Salty’s) on Bondi Beach, and Yolanda Be Cool are spinning the discs there, but they’re more a music duo than DJ’s, for while one attends to the soundtracks, the other is playing trumpet. And, of course, they’re cutting their own tracks.  ‘We No Speak Americano’ topped the British, Spanish, German, Mexican, Argentinian, Swedish, Danish, Swiss, and Ecuadorian charts, and amassed over 200 million YouTube views worldwide. The atmosphere they create is phenomenal. As is another DJ, who whilst he plays the music at Salty’s, his wife wanders through the bar playing saxophone. We never had that in our day, did we? And these clubs in the UK aren’t doing anything like this.

2) The second reason why I think we’re think we’re seeing the demise of the nightclubs in the UK, is …. Wait for this one ….. people date online now. This is something I find incredible, but my nephew explained it to me. He told me you find a girl, she seems to like you, you like her, but she’s also chatting to half a dozen other guys online. She’s hedging her bets. Even if you meet a girl in a bar, she’ll always have here phone on front of her talking to half a dozen other guys online while at the same time talking to you in person. To me, and to you I suspect, that’s the height of discourtesy. If I go for a drink with a friend, or a few of us go for a meal, and someone has their phone out texting others, or looking at Instagram or ‘X’ it’s like saying, ‘There’s someone (or something) much more interesting than you I’d rather pay attention to.’ So I think that’s the second reason nightclubs are closing. Young people don’ go out on the pull anymore, waiting for the last dance of the night - the 'erection section' - to see if they could dance with someone. That’s just not how it’s done. And that, to me, is incredibly sad. They’re losing the art of conversation. When I tell youngsters that I met Sue in the street on the Algarve they hardly believe me,  ‘Well, what did you say to her?’ ‘I said “Let’s go for a drink. I know a nice little bar.”’ ‘Really, Just like that?’ ‘Yeah, just like that.’ Kids today have to go through six months’ worth of texting before they date. And they certainly don’t go to clubs to meet others.

3) And the final reason I believe the clubs are closing, is that music has lost its identity now. We all went out at work once and the conversation drifted to ‘What was the first record you bought.’ Everyone, of course, had a different track. Then we asked the youngsters, and they just looked baffled. So, we re-phrased it, ‘What was the first track you downloaded?’ And still they had no idea. In an age when you can download 1000 tracks in 30 minutes, the music means nothing. They don’t believe it when you tell them that we’d hear a track on the radio and wait two weeks until it reached the record stores. And they don’t understand about going in and asking to listen to the ‘B’ side in the booth. It means nothing to them. So, they’d certainly never understand about the Soul Weekenders. They don’t go to a nightclub, hear a track, make a mental note so they can dash off to the record store on Monday and buy it before they’re all sold out. Music has lost it’s identity, and that, I’m afraid, is very very sad.

Well, there we have it. That’s why I think the UK has lost 37% of it’s nightclubs in the last four years. You may have different ideas, but either way it's very sad, and youngsters are certainly missing out on something.

Copyright © Karl Wiggins