Photos of provincial club nights from the 80s and 90s (and onwards)

[editor]

Lookalikes - George Michael, Cher, Madonna and Michael Jackson impersonators at Raquel's, in Basildon



"The nite spot for the mid 20s" - Zhivago's in Southend



Celebration time at Rains in Southend. I played this club with my band once!

More here: Remember these nightspots? See if you can spot yourself in our gallery of Eighties and Nineties clubs

 

[editor]

Raquels disco in Basildon in full swing

Pictures from the past: Clubbers from the 80s and 90s pictured in south Essex nightspots

THE ECHO has delved into the archives to bring out just a few memories of the nightclubs and discos of south Essex in the 80s and 90s.

www.maldonandburnhamstandard.co.uk

 

[marty21]

shudders I didn't visit any clubs in Southend in the 80s and 90s, but would have gone to similar looking clubs in Bath, Bristol and Swansea

 

[Sue]

I used to work in a provincial club in the early 90s. Shudders.

(It had, of course, an American sounding name and, being properly in the provinces, it was probably more like the 70s than the early 90s. )

 

[farmerbarleymow]

shudders I didn't visit any clubs in Southend in the 80s and 90s, but would have gone to similar looking clubs in Bath, Bristol and Swansea

I went to the Mall in Stockton a number of times when I was 17 or so - it was an old Odeon so a big club but jesus it was shit.

 

[rubbershoes]

(It had, of course, an American sounding name and, being properly in the provinces, it was probably more like the 70s than the early 90s. )

Cinderella Rockefeller?

I went to the Guildford one. Once

 

[Sue]

Cinderella Rockefeller?

I went to the Guildford one. Once

No, that would've been way too glamorous. Was that a chain? The only one I knew of was in Edinburgh. Well it was until the early 90s anyway when it burned down in (what some claimed) were suspicious circumstances.

 

[nogojones]

I think it's a bit harsh lumping the 80's and 90's together for this. Up to 88 you were expected to wear ties and shoes to get into our provincial clubs. They were full on shite. The 90's was a very different experience.

No ties here

 

[Sue]

I think it's a bit harsh lumping the 80's and 90's together for this. Up to 88 you were expected to wear ties and shoes to get into our provincial clubs. They were full on shite. The 90's was a very different experience.

No ties here

View attachment 215855

That looks like an under-18s disco tbf. (Sign of age, I know... )

 

[Fruitloop]

Where is that? Looks horribly familiar

 

[editor]

I think it's a bit harsh lumping the 80's and 90's together for this. Up to 88 you were expected to wear ties and shoes to get into our provincial clubs. They were full on shite. The 90's was a very different experience.

No ties here

View attachment 215855

An awful lot of provincial places saw little change from the 80s into the 90s!

 

[nogojones]

That looks like an under-18s disco tbf. (Sign of age, I know... )

I was younger then

Where is that? Looks horribly familiar

Hippo in Cardiff - probably about 93

 

[danski]

Erm, I’m sure I knew some of the people in the first few pics. They were some of the older kids, my sisters age.
She used to go to those places as an eighteen year old.

 

[Johnny Doe]

An awful lot of provincial places saw little change from the 80s into the 90s!

I not sure that even the most sticky-carpeted mainstream clubs didn't suddenly have a rave hour before the erection section. Not quite provincial, but the hugely Irish/descent Kilburn National having an hour of Prodigy 'Charly' and the like, inbetween the Sawdoctors and the stand for the Irish National if you don't want a beating, was a definite paradigm shift

 

[Orang Utan]

The Hippodrome in London
Tiffany’s and Mr Craig’s in Leeds
Krystals in Leicester
Only went to one club in Bristol but it was ace

 

[Sweet FA]

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Lookalikes - George Michael, Cher, Madonna and Michael Jackson impersonators at Raquel's, in Basildon

View attachment 215848

"The nite spot for the mid 20s" - Zhivago's in Southend

View attachment 215849

Celebration time at Rains in Southend. I played this club with my band once!

More here: Remember these nightspots? See if you can spot yourself in our gallery of Eighties and Nineties clubs

I ended up in some of these clubs in the mid-80s/early 90s on friend's birthday parties. At the time, the biggest club in Southend was TOTS ('Talk of the South'). There was also Dukes in Chelmsford which for a time was basically a fight club - carnage inside but mainly on the pavement outside. (Ground Elder will possibly remember the scenes).

TOTS 1993. I was there for a party around this time or maybe a bit earlier. I had a stripy jumper and a pair of grey baggy waffle trousers from Mr Byrite in Chelmsford

 

[Ground Elder]

I ended up in some of these clubs in the mid-80s/early 90s on friend's birthday parties. At the time, the biggest club in Southend was TOTS ('Talk of the South'). There was also Dukes in Chelmsford which for a time was basically a fight club - carnage inside but mainly on the pavement outside. (Ground Elder will possibly remember the scenes).

I certainly do - only went there once, but dodged the random violence many times after getting off the train late at night

 

[platinumsage]

Bath - can you tell it's the 90s rather than the 80s?

 

[nogojones]

Bath - can you tell it's the 90s rather than the 80s?


View attachment 215949
View attachment 215950

Went there a few times and always left dripping wet

 

[marty21]

Bath - can you tell it's the 90s rather than the 80s?


View attachment 215949
View attachment 215950

Apart from the occasional night at Moles, I'd pretty much finished with Bath Night clubs by the 90s. What club is that?

 

[editor]

This is a fantastic article about Essex "wild DJ turned suited entrepreneur Dick de Vigne" from 1999:

Dick is wary, too, of speaking of his past as something of a ladies' man. As a young DJ, (always known as the Rocking Goose, the name of his sign-off tune) he owned two Afghans - Boob and Disco - and once advertised in the Echo for two "dolly dogsbodies" to take them walking.

"All I need is a couple of birds who will look after the birds. There are no strings attached. Leads, yes," he is quoted as saying.

Whipping up a storm . . .

On the eve of his latest venture in the business of nightclubs, JANE O'CONNELL talks to wild DJ turned suited entrepreneur Dick de Vigne

www.gazette-news.co.uk

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

The Dome, Birmingham. Was the biggest nightclub in Europe at one point apparently. Closed for a refit then reopened as the imaginatively named Dome II:



The lighting rig was ace. Each of the blue circles went up and down, was a great place to do LSD.

It's the O2 Academy now.

 

[editor]

This seems the perfect place to post up my tale of Essex gigs!

Failed bands of my past: east London soul/funk hustlers, Apartment -

Here's another glimpse into one of the long and many 'lean' years of my music career. This time it's June 1983, and I can be seen youthfully posing at the glamorous Essex seaside resort of Southend with the soul/funk outfit Apartment before our gig at the town's Rains nightclub Although based in...

www.urban75.org

 

[clandestino]

View attachment 216046

This seems the perfect place to post up my tale of Essex gigs!

Failed bands of my past: east London soul/funk hustlers, Apartment -

Here's another glimpse into one of the long and many 'lean' years of my music career. This time it's June 1983, and I can be seen youthfully posing at the glamorous Essex seaside resort of Southend with the soul/funk outfit Apartment before our gig at the town's Rains nightclub Although based in...

www.urban75.org

You were in The Dream Academy for a bit? Bloody hell! Impressed!

 

[Steel Icarus]

What's the definition of a provincial club night?

 

[editor]

You were in The Dream Academy for a bit? Bloody hell! Impressed!

Yep! Nick the singer was wildly enthusiastic and a lovely bloke.

 

[editor]

Some more modern stuff here (but on the same theme)

While city clubbers have been busy trying to figure out if they really have the time or the money to sustain that trap lifestyle, a new trend has gripped the suburban nightlife scene – at some point, provincial promoters became entranced with the idea of paying minor celebrities to make "public appearances" in nightclubs. More depressingly, it seems to be wildly successful. Yeah, you might laugh at the videos of people groping Danny Dyer as he tries to mix "Harlem Shake" into "Born Slippy".

I'm sure you're wondering exactly what it is a man who's chiefly famous for being unlucky in love and out of shape does in a "personal appearance". Well, there are actually many facets to such a role. That cash-in-hand money doesn't earn itself. Chiefly, he seemed to loiter around the DJ booth, co-sign their choices with the occasional gun finger and sometimes lean into the mic to shout stuff. I realised that one of the main duties was remembering the name of whatever satellite town he happened to have wound up in and inserting it into stock phrases like: "Milton Keynes girls are definitely much fitter than Essex girls." And suddenly I became very depressed.

A Big Night Out... at the Worst Club Night Ever?

The "stars" from TOWIE and a club in a Milton Keynes shopping centre, together at last.

www.vice.com

 

[oomfoofoo]

Having scanned the pictures of Rein and TOTS in Southend, I can safely say I am not in either of them...phew! Rein turned into a Racquel's then Hollywoods and I can't remember after that, if there was another one??
I had never been 'escorted ' out of anywhere in Southend, until I turned 40 and went to Dick De Vignes for a Christmas party. I was apparently drinking in the wrong place.....