The walls are vibrating. People are dancing on any raised platform they can find. One sweaty juggernaut of a man is wearing a t-shirt with NHS emblazoned across it. Lasers attack in every direction. The crowd go mad every time the bass gets deeper. The club has just peaked. It's 9.45pm on Sunday.
That's right, a curious trend has been popping up across London. Clubs are opening on Sunday evenings. Traditionally, Sunday is a day for relaxing. Possibly, you might have one too many bloody Marys at brunch and things can get a little slippy, but surely that's the most risqué thing one gets up to? As for clubbing, aren't you meant to arrive at midnight, instead of heading home then?
The club's strict 8pm last entry rule meant we'd only had one pint, so were feeling rather more lucid than a usual clubbing experience. We were heading in at 7.30pm so thought the club would be more relaxed than usual. An intense frisk by the bouncers on arrival and a thumping repetitive beat once we were inside soon proved this not to be case. There was to be no holding back tonight.
The music was abrasive, beating the crowd into a frenzy. Blinding lasers and spotlights flashed incessantly, making our fellow clubbers go even wilder. Through the fog of dry ice and waving arms we spotted our first topless clubber. It's 8.28pm.
The crowd had a diverse demographic. About a third were students, so their partying and drinking habits don't need to be overly scrutinised — it's part and parcel of the student lifestyle that drinking is always acceptable, whatever day of the week it is. Then there were people who were slightly older than students, and employed. Some were freelancers or had jobs that meant they could start late.
At first we felt alone with our early morning start (Londonist drives the whip hard), but soon got chatting to a few others who had to be up bright and early for the traditional working week. One man yelled at us over the music: 'THIS IS MAKING ME FORGET I HAVE TO BE AT WORK IN 11 HOURS.'
We didn't quite make it to the end of the night. Stumbling out we expected to see the sun rising high above the Brixton streets only to look crestfallen at our phone and see it was only a tame 11pm. The lengthy queue to get our coats out the cloakroom suggested we weren't the only ones calling it an early night. There wasn't much chance of us lasting until midnight anyway — it's Sunday, so we couldn't rely on London's latest greatest nighttime addition: the night tube.
It will be interesting to see whether this trend continues. It's increasingly difficult for London clubs and bars to obtain late night licenses, so this could be a possible solution. Maybe Night Czar Amy Lamé will become the Evening Czar?
Read more about the state of clubbing in London.
