EVENTS
Northern Soul at Thekla Bristol 6th October 2002
The Espionage Crew have built up a following over a number of years at various venues, sufficient to go weekly at the 400 plus venue, Thekla. They bill themselves as funky , popcorn, sixties, soundtracks, hammond, northern soul or some such thing and ordinarily play a pretty eclectic mix.
Now a few days before I received a call from Jason Starr telling me that he, Nige Shaw and Tony Clarke were doing a Northern Special from 1 til 4. So we duly arrived at about 12.30 and joined the still queuing student (mainly) crown.
The place is an old bout, black, grimy, cavernous, beery and when we got it it was heaving, party atmosphere, beer swilling, no room to dance, but friendly vibe and no room to dance. The music at this point was Ok, mostly 60's soul/ R'n'B and the crowd were really up for it.
Nige came on at 1 and played, in his words, not his usual set. In other words he played to the crowd a bit with more popular stuff in the main, but the crowd stayed with it. Tony Clarke, playing his first Northern set for many a year apparently kept things going.
As the students went home to bed the floor cleared a bit so there was room for some dancing, leaving the hardcore (aging) soulboys, mods and scooterists to take over.
I must say that I had a thoroughly decent night and it's great to see so many people up for this kind of thing even if it is outside the mainstream scene.
(c) Life & Soul Promotions