Homosexuality was illegal in Ireland until the early 90s, and clubs were a space where many gay music fans felt safe and themselves. In the days of my youth, this was where I first met people of all different backgrounds and it was a safe space for many too. Clubs have always been about escape, and they have always provided a chance to forget about everything else for a few hours. As a teenager, this is where I learnt loads about music and people and though it may sound corny to some, but this is where no-one really judged anyone else while having some fun. Ultimately, it’s all about the dance-floor. It reached its peak on New Year’s Eve 1999, and though the big clubs and big names continue to this day, many feel that the essence of club nights are much more on a low-key grassroots level. This era ushered the dawn of the so called ‘super-clubs’, and big name DJs often played multiple venues per night, with the door prices increasingly rising to pay the bills. This means that getting in is not affordable for many, and it’s one of the reasons that many got disillusioned with clubbing at the end of the 90s. VIP sections, which many venues adopt, also suggest there’s a lack of democracy in clubs, and clubs themselves have also sometimes been greedy with regard to door prices. Berghain in Berlin has a door policy that is fairly notorious too, but in truth, nightclubs all over the world have traditionally operated door policies that can confuse the regular clubber. I used often get stopped there in the 90s, until I politely informed them I was their DJ for the evening.
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In Ireland clubs such as the Pod were notoriously selective on the door back in the day. In many ways it was all in sharp contrast to the ethos of the music spun there, though there was plenty of tunes that celebrated this type of high society too. The most celebrated nightclubs in the world, such as Studio 54, often adopted a door policy which was anything but democratic, and ordinary music fans often made way for celebrities.