Back to the clubs

There’s a particular moment at the end of summer when you realise you’re not going to another festival for a while.

It usually happens somewhere between the last warm weekend and the first time you leave the house wearing a jacket. You’re scrolling through Instagram and the photos have changed. Less grouped-up grinning crowds, more dark rooms and sweaty ceilings. The parks and industrial estates that for so much of the summer served as music venues are emptying. The stages are coming down. The temporary toilets are being removed, back into being stored wherever the hell they go when they're not being used. Festival season, for another year, is coming to an end.

Honestly, it's bittersweet.

This summer has been good to us. There have been festivals in fields, illegal raves in darkened woodlands, afternoons spent drinking things that cost £11 and dancing to DJs you’d normally have to wait until 3am to see. There’s something equal parts ridiculous and brilliant about being able to spend an entire day moving between stages, heavily inebriated, with the sun still in the sky. You can lose your friends, find new ones, get an ice cream from a proper ice cream van and somehow end up dancing until the point where your legs stop working. Then, spent, you realise it's only 10pm and there are a ton of afters waiting for you.

For me personally, it ends the summer of the nice shirt I bought that's been complimented every time I left the house in it since June.

And, while it's sad that that is over, particularly people being nice about my shirt, there is something about September that feels like coming home. Because now we get the clubs back.

The big outdoor stages become memories and suddenly the important question isn't which stage are you going to? It's what time are you getting to the club?

There is a different energy to London when club season starts properly. The nights get longer, the rooms get darker and the music somehow sounds better when there isn't a giant expanse of grass between you and the person standing next to you. For many of my friends, they can start listening to techno again as for many people it feels weird listening to hard techno in daylight. There’s something about walking into a club at 11pm knowing that you might not see daylight again for several hours that feels wonderfully irresponsible.

And after a summer of chasing big moments, I think I’m ready for some smaller ones.

A brilliant transition between two records. Finding yourself completely locked into a DJ you didn't know much about beforehand. Having a conversation with someone in the smoking area that somehow turns into spending the rest of the night together. Walking out of a club at 7am and realising that London is already starting its day while yours is only just finishing with the gutpunch of riding the tube home alongside people heading to work.

The thing I love most about club season is that it feels less like an event and more like a rhythm. There will be plenty of big nights, obviously. There will be line-ups worth travelling across London for, venues packed beyond sensible capacity and DJs who somehow make you forget that you promised yourself you'd head home a little earlier.

But there will also be the ordinary nights. The ones you almost don't go to. The nights where you tell yourself you'll only stay for an hour and then, somehow, it's 5am. The nights where you get feral with a couple of friends and form a bond that lasts for years.

Summer might be ending, but that doesn't meanhe fun is. If anything, I think it's just getting started.

To celebrate the end of summer, we're hoping to share a few memories from FrontLeft readers. If you're reading this by email, respond to the email, otherwise reach out to us on Instagram with your best moment of the summer, and we'll chuck a few into next week's newsletter.

I'm still adjusting to being back in the UK, so you'll have to forgive me being lazy and linking to this Dasha set which has just realised. I was here for this when it was played live at Eclectic Zoo last month and it was a fun energetic way to ease into the night. Listening to it back today while I was wrestling through some spreadsheets, it's an energetic way to plough through your work day, too.

It's here on SoundCloud if you're reading this in your inbox.

Apparently, we need rules for the dancefloor now. No racism. No sexism. No homophobia. No transphobia. Obviously. Those are the kind of rules nobody should need to be told about, but unfortunately here we are.

Then there are the others: No yapping on the dancefloor. Respect the music. Treat the dancefloor like a church, a theatre, a place of worship where the only acceptable communication is through movement and a very expensive sound system.

Jane Fitz posted on her feed just before Houghton and it went off. Two very distinct camps emerged in the comments - people who felt seen and people who felt told off.

If you can no longer find it on her Instagram, it’s because the volume of comments got to a point where she decided to archive it. If you’re curious, someone shared it on Reddit where the conversation continued.

Let’s start with the obvious. The dancefloor should be a place where we all respect each other and connect through music. The electronic scene has grown significantly in the last few years, and the rise of TikToks and Reels has brought more into it - which isn’t a bad thing in itself.

Most of these events now attract a mixed crowd: the seasoned ravers and newcomers. Nothing wrong with that. But the tension arises when those people show up looking for different experiences. Some are audiophiles and dancers who come to get lost in the flow and trance that only a dancefloor, their favourite DJ and a good sound system can provide. Others come to meet new people, make friends or catch up with their group for a special occasion.

I’ve been to events for all those reasons. But I’m also aware of dancefloor etiquette - and I learned it the way most people used to. Through experience, and through older ravers who shared stories of the early days or gently let me know when a particular behaviour could have been improved. Whether that was knowing to chat on the sidelines or further back rather than the front row, or how to make your way through a packed dancefloor without annoying everyone around you.

What angered people and what did they have to say?

Some people simply don’t like being told what to do. Others were glad Jane spoke out, because they’d had bad experiences on dancefloors (at Houghton and at other club nights) and felt it mattered for a DJ with her platform to bring awareness to it. On the other hand, others pushed back, arguing that these spaces are precisely where conversations happen that wouldn’t happen anywhere else - because the environment is safe, free and open enough to allow them.

When I scroll through the comments on that post, and the many others you find once you fall down the rabbit hole, I can put myself in everyone’s shoes. I understand what each side is trying to say.

What I keep coming back to is this: if this conversation happened outside a pub, most people would find some common ground even with different opinions. But social media has eroded our ability to do just that: to come to the table with a view and leave with a broader perspective. Not necessarily a changed one. Just a more informed one, and a more generous one toward the people who see it differently.

There was another post, shared widely after Houghton, that took a clear stand against what Jane had said. DJs and dancers reshared it. Some promoters started advertising their events with lines like “come and yap all you want on our dance floor.” People shared personal stories - about the most vulnerable conversations they’d ever had happening on a dance floor, friendships that started mid-set, relationships that began because someone said something to a stranger between two tracks.

And here’s where I land on it. The experience at a summer festival and the experience at a late-night club are genuinely different, and I think it’s worth acknowledging that. I don’t get offended if someone is chatting near me at a day festival, as long as they’re not shouting over the music. But I do find it harder when someone is talking loudly and persistently at the front row of a dark club room on a Friday or Saturday night, because that’s where I go to let the week go, to let the music do what only it can do.

The point isn’t that one experience is more valid than the other. It’s that everyone at these events is there for their own reason and that’s fine, as long as there’s some awareness and respect attached to it. Just as you wouldn’t take a loud personal phone call in the middle of a restaurant, the same basic consideration applies on a dancefloor. The dancefloor doesn't need to become a church. It just needs us to remember that we're sharing it with other people.

I've got a couple of birthday parties this weekend, but that's for the best because I have no idea how I'd get any sleep this weekend otherwise. Rene Wise at Fold feels like a must-see, but... so is Eclectic Zoo's boat party. Not that you would want to be burning all of your energy on Friday because Bassiani plays Fold on the Saturday and Benebe joins a stuffed lineup for some fun vinyl shenanigans at The Glove That Fits on Saturday.

So, I'll be sort-of behaving, celebrating the birthday of a couple of friends. However, I've been looking for a reason to check out Radial, and its opening party on Sunday looks pleasingly techno. It's close to me and I'm looking for accomplices, so if you're also going to Radial this Sunday, give me a shout in the Whatsapp, I guess.

Friday

• Origins: Rene Wise (All Night Long) Fold
• Eclectic Zoo presents: Kaufmann Tereza-Joanne Boat
• Out Of Office: Team Building Vespers Club

Saturday

• FOLD presents Bassiani (EXTENDED) Fold
• Day & Night: Vinyl House & Techno The Glove That Fits
• The Cause x Cortex presents: Loxy, DJ Flight, Nectax, CHEZA LUCINA The Cause

Sunday

• radial presents: official launch – sunday Radial

• Chloe Calliet's video from Lost Village, which had heavy rain throughout the festival, looks like a real vibe.
• There's been a Red Alert drug warning issued in the Netherlands over some Donald Trump-themed ecstasy, which could be potentially lethal if ingested. Lots of London's ecstasy comes from the Netherlands, so be vigilant.
• A New York nightclub, Basement, has banned smartglasses from the venue. I hope venues in UK follow suit. Smartglasses give me the heebie jeebies. Also in this story, London festival Body Movements banned Meta glasses too.