AWOL Paradise Club

A review from 1993  on AWOL in London...........

We had been told to expect a long queue when we got to this club but we thought it wouldn't be too bad by the time we got there, it was half past eleven, how wrong we were!  The queue was massive, right to the end of the street and round the corner, loads of eager faces waiting to get in and start stomping.

As you entered the club you could tell the security were on top of situation and the normal search was carried out firmly but politely.  If you had chewing gum on you it was taken, not as a rip off but because they are sick of it getting stuck on the floors and seats and a few people have complained when they have say on it or had to put it in their hair as one girl did the other week - fair enough really.

As you go through you enter the coffee / chill out lounge which can offer a selection of hot or cold drinks all at reasonable prices - nice and cool for anyone needing a sit down and well appreciated later on in the night.   Pleased to see a first aid man available and although he was a bit of a knob he is an essential part of the club (if you want a three hour lecture on taking drugs have a chat to him).

When you walked through the next set of doors you entered the Mellow Room (Mellow Submarine) which had some good backdrops and good ambient sounds blasting out.  A bar was also in this room and remained licensed until the early hours of the morning.

When you walked through the next set of doors it was like entering another world, you got hit in the face by a totally different atmosphere - horns, whistles , fucking loud music and what seemed to be an excellent atmosphere.  We walked around for a while checking the joint out and then started to move with the beat, the music was slightly different to the normal hardcore we are used to and was more underground, a bit head fuck to be honest as one minute your going fast the next minute your going slow.  My companion for the night was at his first rave and probably wasn't the place to have brought him - saying that he assures me he had an absolutely brilliant night and would go again.

Mickey Finn's resident here and when he came on the crowd went up, they absolutely love him and I suppose a lot of people got to the Paradise Club just to see him as he is on every week, fair play, good music, fucking brilliant music was pumped out the whole time he was on.  The other DJ's on the night kept up with the standard and the MC was good as well, MC GQ.  There is actually a third floor to the building but it was empty when we poked our heads around the door, from what we were told that floor wouldn't have been our scene anyway, if you know what I mean, well it is London.

There was a mixture of people in the club and everyone we spoke to had a great time and was very friendly.   We were told this club was  kicking and it really was, I definitely be back and would recommend to anyone to go along and try it out.  The only criticism I would have would be it does get a bit packed leaving little room to dance, but as the night went on the dance floor thinned out as people started to tire.

The club doesn't finish until 11am Sunday or later so people come after our events at about 6 or 7 in the morning, we left at around 8.30 as we had a long drive ahead of us and couldn't believe it when we saw a queue waiting to get in.  Just proves how popular this club really is and now we have been we can see why.

What ever you do be careful where you park because we found our car in the middle of a street market that had been put up around us, apparently the tow truck was on the way.  Christ we were lucky......  Paul