R & She/Tipsy, 28th March

So, a gay R & B night, especially one that plays nothing but tracks by women can rightly be described as pretty niche. But what a popular niche that is!

Monthly at Tipsy is R & She, a clubnight covering just such a niche. Doors open at 9 and by 11:30 the place is already a sweaty mess. Tipsy is one of those basement clubs that is basically just a space, a bar and a soundsystem, no more no less. Everywhere else is for dancing, and so it is used. They warned on their Twitter feed that it gets busy and to get there early. We made a concerted effort to get there before 11 and I wouldn’t say it was very busy at all. Half an hour later and that had all changed. I was so pleased we got there that little bit earlier as it meant we could dance with a bit of room. We do like to spread out when we're dancing! And everyone was dancing straight away - the music defied you not to!

Especially with such a strong start – Amerie’s 1 Thing, Beyonce’s Naughty Girl and Aaliya’s More than a Woman made an appearance. It mostly stayed at that level although there was a weaker point in the night where we noticed they were cheating a little – playing remixes of songs made famous by men originally. For example Pretty Lady by Savana.

But other than that it was pretty solid – we bumped and ground to Nina Sky, Destiny’s Child and lo, not very long after I said I would love them to play a song by Cassie, so they did!

I don’t know if Tipsy has air conditioning but if they did it could not compete with the sheer number of bodies and the heat they were creating by moving. After a while, you just had to give yourself over to the sweat. It was all part of the fun! Naturally we stayed to the very end, even when my feet had more or less given up on me. I was happy to take a seat and sit-dance along. Fabulous, darling!

Dalston Superstore, 1st June

I had very different expectations of Dalston Superstore compared to the reality. I had heard that the door staff were unfriendly and if you didn’t dress to impress in your ultrahipster chic or weren’t gay, you wouldn’t get in. I’m happy to say that in our experience (going with two straight guys who while yes, are technically dressed, could never be said to be dressed for anything, let alone impressing) that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Granted, we did go quite early (around 11 pm) in order to avoid the crowds, given that it was a free night but we were greeted with smiles and let right in.

The night in question happens downstairs monthly at Dalston Superstore on a Friday. It is called BREED and is hosted by Rex the Dog, a DJ who my friend is a fan of. The ‘superstore’ could more aptly be described as a ‘minimart’. It’s tiny. The bar area upstairs was adorned with dogs in reference to BREED I assume and is pretty small and narrow. The club downstairs is bigger but still fairly intimate.  I had been picturing some sort of converted warehouse that didn’t look dissimilar to the large Indian supermarket on Brick Lane. For some reason, the fact that they do food only reinforced my false impression, picturing as I was a space large enough for several picnic tables upon which skinny, bearded people tucked into pancakes and OJ. Perhaps it shouldn’t, but my expectations of the venue influenced the kind of night I thought it would be. I imagined dancing with abandon in wide spaces until the early hours. This venue leant itself more to bopping about and sometimes bopping into other people, which is always a good excuse to say hello and make friends.

Dalston Superstore is a gay club and it couldn’t be more evident when you go upstairs. They had a tranny DJ playing poptastic dance stuff (I think they played Hot Chip when I ordered my whore’s handbag cocktail [had to be done – and it was delicious]). Less than two hours later the upstairs bar was absolutely rammed – mostly full of skinny bearded guys snogging each other while the DJ announced that he preferred it bareback in the 90s. But the club is ‘straight friendly’ and my two friends dancing downstairs felt perfectly comfortable.

I have no complaints about the night – it was fun, but it wasn’t AMAZING. It probably doesn’t help that just a week later I went to Krankbrother’s Street Party after party and that absolutely smashed it, making my night in Superstore seem tame by comparison. In fact I think I even left before the place closes which I almost never do! However, I did have fun and I enjoyed the music both upstairs and downstairs so I wouldn’t rule out going back; I just didn’t fall in love with the place.