When I planned my weekend getaway to Edinburgh, I certainly wasn’t expecting to find myself raving away at three in the morning on Cowgate Street. Yet that’s what happened on Saturday night of 18 January. Allow me to elaborate.
My day started in hopeful glee as I played celebratory songs from my earbuds, jumping into the taxi and making my way to York Train Station, rigorously queuing ‘I’m On My Way’ and ‘King of the Road’ by The Proclaimers, ‘Teenage Kicks’, ‘Don’t You Want Me’, and finally ‘Starman’. If I was to see the Hibernian v. Clydebank friendly match, I wanted to be ready. Why did I travel two and a half hours for a football match? Well, sometimes I miss the unique energy of a cheering and singing crowd collectively enjoying a good, non-televised game. Plus, my home stadium is nine hundred miles away…
I arrived at Easter Road by two-thirty, basking in the relaxed atmosphere of the early afternoon and admiring the industrial design of the stadium. To my utter bafflement, it was the quietest game I’ve ever been to, even though Hibs scored three whole goals! The only die-hard fans I heard singing were a meagre group relegated to the left side of the East Sector, whose drumming I religiously tapped along to with my foot, to not freeze entirely.
It was only five o’clock when the steps emptied and I found myself wandering alone down Iona Street, headed towards Pilrig Street and my hostel. The sky was already darkening, and the temperature was reaching near zero. I couldn’t certainly stroll through Edinburgh and Leith at this time, so I took the tram to The Shore and opted to get some tea in when a poster affixed at The Percy’s window caught my attention.
“Chromatic: Saint Ludo”, the bold writing explained in a confusing agglomeration of green, white, and black. I squinted, it seemed interesting. According to the poster, The Bongo Club in the Old Town would host three DJs from the bass scene that very same night!
I quickly checked online for available tickets and lo and behold: only £8.50 to see Saint Ludo, Lara Sinclair, and Z03, straight from London and only half an hour from where I was staying. I booked them instantly.
Used to the informal rave scene of Sheffield venues, I opted to freshen my green eyeshadow and throw on a simple vintage Levi’s shirt. The point of the night was to have fun and nothing else! As Lee Marrow’s ‘Movin’ played in my ears, the number 11 made its way to Princes Street, and I regretted breaking my phone’s camera. The Castle’s and the National Gallery’s lights were stunning in the quiet, evening street.
From The Mound to Milne’s Court, to Victoria Street, passing through back alleys and narrow stairs, I juggled between ‘No Sleep’ (WXZ_O), ‘It’s My Beat’ (XRNT, NYCO, JSTN), ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials, and of course ‘Born Slippy’. When I reached Cowgate Street I was buzzing, fully ready to dance the night away, only to miss the entrance to the club as I first walked down the road, perhaps distracted by Chappell Roan’s voice rising from The Three Sisters and by the sign “£3 per slice” at a pizza shop.
When I finally managed to get in, The Bongo Club was deserted. At 11pm, I thought I’d just wasted almost a tenner. I got a ginger beer and explored the venue, awkwardly asking for a lighter in the beer garden. The bartender had assured me it would get busy, and I hoped so like never before because the room where Lara Sinclair was opening already seemed amazing. The DJ set was almost invisible in the pitch-black darkness, broken only by flashing red lights and a deafening bass. Still, though, I was too self-conscious to dance by myself.
As the room got progressively more crowded, I quickly realised that I was not only dramatically lacking major dancing skills but also severely underdressed in comparison to the other student ravers, who had already started having fun. As embarrassment crept in, I tried my best to bob my head to the rhythm or at least sway along. I was wasting good music to my own anxiety! Then, it started.
The volume somehow reached exorbitant levels as people started jumping and pulling their mates to the dance floor, the tempo increased, and party starters gave way to more distorted bass. The vibrations were running from the speakers to the floor and through my body, reverberating in my chest and eardrums as I quickly removed my jacket and jumper. Finally, I focused only on the DJs and the beats as the ice in my body melted and I lost myself to a perfect remix of ‘I Can C U, U Can C Me’ (Crazy Titch), Ludo’s edit of ‘Golden Dub’, the unreleased ‘goulish’ and ‘buckley’ as well as ‘BAVRR’, and more.
Just as I thought Saint Ludo couldn’t possibly get any better after managing to transform Amy Winehouse into a bass hit, she shocked the crowd – or at least me – by letting Brian Johnson’s voice pierce through the room, singing ‘Back in Black’ and teasing us with the progressive and quickening pace of a drumbeat. Red, yellow, blue, and green lights were flashing all around us, suddenly stopping in complete darkness before the track exploded in a relentless, bone-rattling and intoxicating mix of heavy bass and lasers.
I managed to hold on to the rail as Saint Ludo and Lara Sinclair alternated on the set, masterfully mixing the bouncing yet powerful bass, rap and hip-hop lyrics, and even some jungle and garage classics. The crowd was on fire, everyone was losing it on the linoleum floor, bumping into each other with more and more glasses of water as it approached three in the morning. I was completely drenched, already regretting wearing some flat Adidas that had certainly wrecked my tendons and would make the day after one endless nightmare, but I shooed the thought away as everyone started chanting “one last train!” in the now semi-lit room.
The two DJs teased us all for a few minutes, eventually letting us go without one last track but someone else provided the equivalent of ‘I’m On My Way’ by Parrish. Nested away under the gallery of Cowgate Street a man was drumming along to a psychedelic flute while an increasingly big group of students and locals alike hopped and sang around him, grabbing each other’s arms in a chain of careless joy as the rest encouraged them.
I jumped in, ignoring my check-out time at ten in the morning and the last night bus I was definitely going to miss, revelling instead in the hypnotic and impromptu group dance. How it’d gotten from a football weekend to a raving one still amazed me, yet as we all danced in unison in the freezing night, I knew I wouldn’t have changed it for anything in the world.
