Soul of the 60s, 19th December

I have been looking forward to writing this blog post because I couldn’t wait to share the sheer joy that is Soul of the 60s at The Phoenix. It is exactly the kind of night I had been looking for. Sure, the Northern Soul nights like Mousetrap and Crossfire I’ve been to are good – really good for authentic 60s soul. But I never know any of the songs they play and sometimes you just want to dance to something familiar. Familiar but fantastic.

And that is exactly what Soul of the 60s provides. If you can think of a well-known 60s soul song, they will play it. It is basically non-stop bangers and they even take requests (not sure if that is the general policy or if it’s because the DJ was, self-confessedly, quite tipsy)! Once we got on the dance floor it was a wrench to leave. I had every intention of going home at 12:30 as I had a treasure hunt to get to at noon the next day but I couldn’t tear myself away. I ended up dancing for another hour after that before I decided I would regret it in the morning if I didn’t leave now.

So what do they play? Strictly speaking, not just 60s soul. There was some 70s funk in there too – a bit of James Brown (Get On Up), a bit of 50s as well. But all of it was excellent music. They played Land of a Thousand Dances, they played Soul Man and Sweet Soul Music. I seem to remember they played ‘Stay’ from the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack. Name a song you like from that era, they probably played it, and if they didn’t that night, they probably will at some point.

This is some of the best music to dance to in my opinion – upbeat, happy, sexy, you don’t even have to think about it and your feet start moving. An absolutely stellar night which is definitely going to make it into my repertoire of regular nights I go to. I cannot wait to get back there.