I was never much of a ‘clubber’, as people who attend nightclubs are called. My clubbing activities were essentially confined to Tiffany’s in Bristol and even then only on the midweek ‘heavy night’. Tiffany’s, hidden in what appeared to be a small quarry between affluent Clifton and Redland, closed around 40 years ago and was replaced by the parasites of private healthcare, Spiral. When I clubbed, I rarely danced beside the plastic palm trees because I was rubbish at dancing and anyway it’s not that easy to dance to Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. I was mildly disappointed when it closed but I soon moved on, given that pubs mainly fulfilled my evening social needs. To some people, clubbing and their memories of clubbing, mean a great deal, which is why there has been a great outpouring of sadness at the impending closure of the Chasers Night Club in the Kingswood area of Bristol.
As with the vast majority of nightclubs, I have never been in it. In fact, until I used the services of Mr Google, I had no idea where it was. (I now know that I must have walked and driven past it probably on hundreds of occasions. My powers of observation letting me down again.) Now we learn that due to declining foot traffic Chasers is to close once and for all.
Is it sad? Well, it certainly is for the people who work there, the clubbers who use the place and the people who hire the place for special occasions. And there is a part of all of us who would rather that things never change, that life should carry on the same road forever and a day. Even a place we never use, like a nightclub, it is reassuring that it’s still there.
In the case of Chasers, the owners say this: “In decades past hundreds of people were out beyond 10pm, today the high street may have only 60 to 100 people to share amongst every venue.” These days, unless you are in town or in the more affluent areas of Bristol, like Clifton, people are not out in large numbers during any part of the evening, let alone to nightclubs.
It’s certainly in part to the cost of living crisis. A night out in a pub is expensive enough in modern day Bristol, before you even consider moving on to the nightclub where it is likely that booze will be even more expensive and, importantly for me, pretty well undrinkable. I went to Tiffany’s despite the terrible beer – Ben Truman bitter and Carlsberg lager, so essentially bat’s piss – and that was one reason I never liked the idea of nightclubs. (Other reasons included having to pay to get in and having to listen to horribly loud terrible music. The prospect of meeting girls, appealing though that might be, was overshadowed by the possibility of having to return to the same ghastly nightclub in order to see them again. Why take the chance? Go to the pub instead. Oh, and having to take an expensive taxi home.)
While it is certainly sad that a much-loved institution that in this case is not situated in the heart of town has to close, I’m afraid that is the way of the world. It’s the cost of living crisis, for sure, but it’s also people’s changing lives. People just don’t use nightclubs in the same way that they used to. Pubs and restaurants are open later and that could be a factor, too. But mainly, clubbing is so yesterday.
It’s not just nightclubs which are on their knees. Pubs, too, are closing at an alarming rate and that’s for the same reasons. Many of us prefer an occasional visit into town to drink in a few good boozers and if we want a drink during the rest of the week we might open a bottle of wine costing a fraction of what you might pay in your local.
In the years ahead, I expect the decline of the boozers in the ‘burbs to continue until, as in some areas already, there are no pubs at all. And who knows, as times change, maybe the nighttime economy in town and in the wealthy areas will change and decline, too.
The impending closure of Chasers is but another sad point along the road as life changes around us. The club was constructed in 1980 and since then the world has changed in ways we could never have imagined. Who would have imagined your whole world would be in your hand in the form of a mobile telephone, linked to the internet (the what)? We move on, not always for the better, and the demise of the old certainties just carries on.
Karl Marx, and Gary Barlow, pointed out that everything changes (but you, in Gary’s case) and that’s true. Again, not always for the better, I know, but that’s just the way life is. I still look back fondly at Tiffany’s but that’s been gone for most of my life. My memories will remain, as I hope yours, with Chasers, will too.
