By Denny on Fri 8 Dec 2000 at 23:46
Four weeks have passed since last I partied in Cambridge, and so it was that last night I found myself loading the car with music and friends and heading for another Tight Laced event...
I was a little worried that it was going to be a bit of a dull evening, with the largely student population of Cambridge having headed home for Xmas, but I couldn't have been more wrong... attendance was low, but the atmosphere was absolutely brilliant, and I had a great time.
The thing that really picked the evening up was this club's main distinguishing characteristic, the music. Tight Laced has a wildly varied musical policy, compared to the wall-to-wall hard-house found at most other events. Last night I danced to everything from Adam Ant to Ultraviolence, passing through hard house, nosebleed techno and goth stuff I wouldn't want to categorise on the way. Excellent. The mixes got a little bit rough round the edges at times, but the sheer variety and enthusiasm of the music being played made this seem irrelevant to me. At every TL I've been to so far, I've left with a bit of paper with details of an album I want to buy written on it!
Most of the details of this club have been covered in the previous reviews ( [1] [2] ) so I'll just brush over them briefly here... the event is held in a small alternative venue called the Q bar, which has a good decor for this kind of event, with TL supplying the finishing touches themselves. There are lots of mirrors to admire yourself in (including one over the dancefloor which can be quite disorienting!) as well as handy railings to chain willing victims to if that's your thing. The sound system is good, with plenty of effects lighting both on the dancefloor and around the rest of the venue. There are also TVs showing various weird films through the night.
After our late arrival at the last Tight Laced event, I managed to herd my friends into the car a bit earlier this time, and so we arrived at about 9:30pm. At this point, the club was almost totally empty, with less than a dozen people in there when we arrived. I started to worry at this stage, a state of mind that wasn't helped when the next few people to come in hadn't made any effort to dress up at all, including one guy in the ultimate fetish-club no-no, blue jeans. There is not a fetish club in this land where blue jeans are acceptable attire, and no matter how quiet it was and how much of a regular he might of been, I was shocked that he was allowed in dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. His friends were wearing combat trousers and t-shirts, which wasn't much better.
I noted at the last couple of TL events that there seemed to be three categories of dressing up there. (1) Going for it - rubber catsuits, gas masks, corsets and heels, serious fetish attire. (2) Goth - PVC or leather jeans, frilly shirts, make-up etc. (3) Must try harder - girls in black cocktail dresses and tights with court shoes, guys in combat trousers and 'cyber' t-shirts (a cyber t-shirt is apparently anything with a reflective patch on it). To these three categories I now add (4) Taking the piss - people who saw the cocktail dresses and combat trousers people at the last couple and are now just going to turn up in whatever they put on that morning. I urge the promoters not to let these people in next time, and to start considering the people in category 3 carefully as well... nothing will kill a fetish event more dead than not enforcing the dress code.
It wasn't until about 10:30 that the club suddenly started to fill up with people. It was also around this time that the music shifted from goth stuff to dance and industrial, which was more to my taste. From here on, the night took off nicely. The timing of everyone arriving might have something to do with the rise in entry price at 10:30pm, although as this rise takes it from a ridiculously cheap £2 to a ridiculously cheap £3 I wouldn't of thought it would make that much difference...
Most of the people who turned up at this point were dressed somewhere between categories 1 and 2 above, more towards 1 probably, which really helped to create the fetish club atmosphere again after the disappointing outfits on some of the earlier arrivals. Highlight of the night had to be the guy in a leather posing pouch, leather sandals, and a huge mask/helmet thing (maybe headpiece is the word I want?). There was also a very nicely dressed female in something shiny and V shaped that just about covered most bits that you'd get arrested for exposing elsewhere, but not a lot else... nice. I think one of my companions should get a mention for wearing a white feather boa in place of a skirt for a large part of the evening too!
Finally, to top off an evening that was already going pretty damn well, the manager of the venue came over to chat to me and my friends, and brought a bottle of really nice champagne and some glasses with him - thankyou very much!! I can assure you my report is unbiased though, as I couldn't drink any because I'm the designated driver for my crowd... shame, I don't get offered free champagne very often!
This club remains high on my recommended list, partially because of the low entry price, partially because of the good mix of music played, and partially because of the very friendly regular customers and the equally friendly staff and promoters. The only thing this event needs to make it better is a curtained-off area for people who want to get more than casually intimate, and some dungeon furniture for those who like to play with whips etc. I'm told the dungeon gear has been ordered, so those people can look forward to its arrival, hopefully at the next event, or possibly the one after.
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