WAS Studio 54 just as loud, smelly and sticky as any other club you’ve had the misfortune to visit? Probably. And these other places would have sucked too:
Studio 54
Studio 54 was renowned for extravagant events, excessive drug use and a laissez-faire attitude towards open sexual activity. It sounds louche and outrageous, but is it actually enjoyable to be around people off their tits on coke shagging in plain sight? No. And as for Bianca Jagger riding a horse onto the dance floor, well, it’s all fun and games until someone slips on a big shit.
The Moulin Rouge
The film made this world-famous nightclub look like it was fabulous in its 1890s heyday, but all those attractive dancers and cabaret stars would not have looked that sexy, given the lack of access to dentists and fresh vegetables. And anyway, Satine would have killed the lot of them by breathing pulmonary TB everywhere before she expired herself.
The Haçienda
Everyone raves about the Haçienda, but people mainly thought it was good because they were off their faces on ecstasy. If you weren’t you were basically spending the evening in a warehouse with an excess of yellow hazard warning stripes. The drugs also attracted gangsters, and someone firing a gun in the foyer does tend to spoil the Summer-of-Love, let’s-all-take-E-and-hug vibe.
The Cavern Club
Liverpool’s Cavern Club was famously the birthplace of The Beatles, which means everyone assumes it must have been amazing. However, apparently it was horribly overcrowded, the sound was shit and it didn’t have a bar until 1967. Which would have made for a terrible night out, even if a youthful Lennon and McCartney were standing on the stage in front of you. Or, more probably, Cilla Black.
The 100 Club
The 100 Club was the spiritual home of punk, with the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Buzzcocks playing on a regular basis. Sounds cool from a distance of 50 years, but it would have been hideous at the time: full of spitting, spotty youths aggressively pogoing to badly played instruments and occasionally punching each other. Thank God kids nowadays channel their unfocused anger into incomprehensible TikTok videos about gender issues.
