2Klub - Gatecrasher - Clubs

Gatecrasher
@ The Republic
Sheffield.

Website

I don't mind paying a fair bit to get into a good clubbing playing music I like, but I do resent being squashed like a Japanese commuter on a bullet train in a club where there's no room to dance.

Had it. Lost it.

In the time it's taken me to get 'round to writing my take on Gatecrasher, they've gone from weekly to monthly and clubland is in trouble. These days the management are charging £18+ for 'crasher yet nothing, zippo, nada for their other Saturday nights, (S1 1DJ). Just as Insomniacz announced that it wants to become a super club, again, (see Insomniacz review), this super club looks like it's become a pooper club. The Republic is a nicely appointed large-ish club with good sound system and lights, featuring some well known DJs playing commercial UK trance and, more latterly, some harder sounds. Despite this, when I went I found it over-priced and over-packed: no room on the dance floor to dance, so you ended up in the lobby bit between the main floor and the Plasma Lounge. Some (but only some) of the cyber kids had a ba-a-a-a-d attitude problem, possibly engendered by over use of, or dealing in, mood-altering substances. Lots of other people were very friendly though. They seem to have brought their opening times forward to 8pm and none of their material that I've seen mentions a closing time, a ploy some clubs use when they're not sure how many punters they'll get in, giving them the flexibility to close "early" if the numbers don't warrant keeping the place open later. To be fair, their more recent events do state a closing time of 6am. My main memory: some managerial woman telling me to put away my glowsticks. Needless to say I've not been for some time. Gatecrasher can't be that bad though- they made Eddie Halliwell a resident!. For related insights also read my reviews of Good Greef, which grew out of Gatecrasher's determination to get rid of many of its customers, and S1 1DJ. A look at their website (15.06.03) was revealing:

"Fresh clubwear"? ! ... better make sure you're wearing clean undies then. Gives a whole new meaning to the concept of sniffer dogs! No wonder Insomniacz, another club which grew out of a reaction to 'crasher, stated their dress code as: "None - it's a club not a classroom".

Rather than focusing on their Sheffield club, the management now seem to be capitalising on the club's past reputation and trying to build a "global brand" by operating events abroad - many in the USA, a market UK dance music producers and promoters have been trying to crack for quite a while, with only limited success so far. Possibly the first to try this was Darren Hughes, ex-Cream, with his clubs, Home, based in London, New York and Sydney. This all went tits up when Home in Leicester Square seemed incapable of controlling drug-dealing on the premises and so lost its license, an issue which plagued a number of the "super" clubs at the beginning of the 00s, as there were a number of police raids and actions around the UK at the same time pushing these large venues to get a grip on in-house dealing.

Overall Gatecrasher was a very successful club at one time, (late 1990s to early 00s), providing the North of England with mainstream commercial trance, but which seemed to lose the plot... and a lot of its customers... at a time when there seemed also to be a seismic shift in the clubbing market. A less succesful attempt at repositioning than God's Kitchen.

To experience a club which sustains the intense loyalty of its clubbers throughout the Midlands, doing pretty much the same as 'crasher used to do before it lost its way, go to Passion.