I admit that when I arrived in Edinburgh last September as a fresh-faced first year, my knowledge of clubbing and music was limited. I willingly trotted along to F*ck Me It’s Freshers, followed friends to Subway and began making the weekly Wednesday pilgrimage to Why Not, unaware that there was really anything more to the city’s nightlife than that.
Then, come Halloween, panicked by the talk of everything selling out and potential hours-long queues, me and my friends decided to chance it on a place we’d never ventured into, and got tickets to Sneaky Pete’s. Cue the best night out of my life, and the start of a love of music and going out that has since shaped me as a person.
What makes that tiny little club so good? A large part of it is just that, its 100-person capacity makes for an intense but rarely overwhelming experience. Even if the night you’re there isn’t all that busy, you’ll never experience the soul-crushing feeling you get as you walk into The Liquid Room and are faced with an empty cavern of about twenty people clustered around the edges of the dance floor, everyone else hiding in the smoking area until “it gets good.”
You feel you really get to know your fellow dancers, especially when you climb up the raised platforms at the back and are able to look out across the entire floor, a sea of grooving heads partially obscured by the smoke.
And that smoke! Production pumps it out periodically throughout the night, its thick, sweet smell adding to the already vivid sensory experience of the lights and music.
The decoration in there, if you pause your dancing a moment to look around, is also striking. Upcoming event posters and graffiti line the walls, a sign reading “Come talk to us, we’re gay!” invites us to the bar, and a huge neon Sneaky Pete’s logo sits suspended above the DJ booth.
But what we’re really here for — the music — is even more exciting, with vastly different sounds and DJs from night to night. Anything from soul, to UK Garage, to hard techno can be heard booming from their speakers.
Now, if you hear that and think: “I’ll stick to my white girl bangers” please, just give it a chance! Have a look on the Resident Advisor Guide app, find an event you think looks potentially fun with a good poster (always important), and make your way down to Cowgate. Even if it isn’t Sneaky Pete’s, just try something new!
It can be so easy to get stuck in old habits of heading to the same pub, then to the same club, with the same people, on the same night. For many of us, going out and letting loose is such an important part of work-life balance at university, let’s not let it go stale.
Image by Millie Morris-Thomas for The Student
