Leicester Specific Post - The Fan Club Expands, 'Traz Buried

This post is probably less relevant to anybody reading than any other post. Alternatively, you found it specifically and its very relevant. Either way...

Tonight I went to The Fan Club in Leicester. Opening night of its new 3 room's. I knew nothing of what they'd done, but it didn't take a genius to work out it probably involved knocking through to what we once knew as Sector 5, Alcatraz or Oxygen. To be honest, I only knew it as Oxygen, and briefly as Alcatraz on its second failed attempt under that name. That's because i'm younger than some that remember the other names. It doesn't mean any less to me.

Initial excitement that a club I have favoured in the past was growing lasted only a short time. Fan Club is still a reasonable club, but its new rooms remind me of places I don't tend to enjoy. Lounge furniture, carpets etc.

This is not the worst part. I have seen the dingy long room that I once called home with the cage and the stage transformed into an admittedly more expensive room with cream couches, intense spotlights and curtains on the bar back wall.

For some reason, this gets to me. Probably because my nostalgic mind believed that the place would once again lie dormant and eventually rise again as a familiar rock club. The Fan Club's acquisition of "next door" effectively puts 'traz in the ground forever. There is no way any right minded person would ever undo the work that has been done to make the place what it is now. I don't hate it, but time I spend in it just reminds me of time I spent enjoying the best nights of my young life, when it looked very different, and played very different music.

'traz was raw. Fan Club, believe it or not, was also fairly raw. The new Fan Club extension is far from raw. It's exactly what you would expect of a company extending a club in 2007, and for some reason I didn't expect it at all. For some strange reason, I expected Alien Concepts to attempt to capitalise on the old place's vibe. I'm not sure why, given that last time it was open as the old place it failed dismally. I have little doubt that the next step will be to close the original room for a few weeks and bring it up to lounge spec, after which 'traz will remain dead, and Fan Club will also be a completely different place, which means something too, but much less.

Am I living in the past? No. I'm just spending a night there and writing about it. Day to day this doesn't matter at all. Most people that cared about 'traz moved on 2-3 years ago. I just hope that they look back with fond memories to the only place they've ever visited where they never felt remotely out of place, and never once felt an air of judgment. It was the happiest and most easy going of places. This was the magic of 'traz, and i've never found a place like it since it disappeared.

Drunken rant over. If anybody reads this and feels similar, leave a comment. I'd love to know if i'm alone on this.