Vote for Belfast’s worst night out

Embrace the hate

belfast box nightclub Limelight Thompsons

I’ve been frequenting Belfast’s nightlife for quite some time now, it is truly a fantastic scene with some venues being big contenders for my favourite nights out.

Every taste is catered for in Belfast- whether you be a deep house fan, live band attendee or you’re just fond of getting absolutely airlocked-barrelstocked. But there are also huge contenders for out worst nights out: the scourges of Belfast’s nightlife are many, but most of the fickle masses are unaware of how shit these places actually are.

I’ll set the scene: You’re thoroughly enjoying your pre-drinks, your mates are rocketing through a game of extreme kings, some guy in the corner dressed like a 2009 River Island mannequin is playing Porter Robison through a Lumia hooked to an AUX. You’re sipping your jack and coke and satisfied with the level of inebriation you’ve accumulated through shots of Stϋkaberg (because you’re too skint to buy proper poison) and some other girl’s peach schnapps.

You’re fair on.

You want to go to Cuckoo, have a few jars (quite literally) and pass out under the Schwarzenegger quotes listening to Wu-Tang. Some scantly-clad beanpole from Dungannon comes in dressed like someone dipped her in the late-80s, breaks your thoughts of Cuckoo and forces the squad to voyage to the dark realm of poor-taste, watered down Smirnoff and unimaginative nightlife.

What venues define this realm you ask?

BOX 

Yes folks, BOX nightclub. If the taxi ride out isn’t going to make you want to slide into a deep pit of depression, the fare will.

The journey is somewhat comparable to a shortened version of the film Locke but instead of a car journey reflecting on a crumbling marriage, you’re reflecting on poor night choices and a light wallet.

Everyone in the queue looks like a dodgy X-Factor wannabe, and then you encounter the juiced and insecure bouncers who are so high off their own body dysmorphia that they like shouting and enjoy wearing “North Face” stuff.

Eventually you are brushed into a dark stairwell and the debauchery begins.

Not one person here is happy.

Its starts slowly:

The stench of Paco Rabanne, spilt Red Bull and shame fills your nostrils, your friends shuffle you to the bar which can only be described as a bread line of anarchy. They’re playing a sped-up version of “Wagon Wheel”, which provides the perfect ambience for your Tuesday night ritual.

It’s here you’ll usually find Captain Checked-Shirt wrist deep in one of your course peers. And let us not forget the crude pictures of some melted looking doll taking pictures of your yoke while you’re taking a leak. It’s as if they know insecurity makes your booze taste nicer…

All of this topped by a smoking area which seems to attract all of the north Atlantic winds- you know you’re in BOX when having a cigarette means diamond hard nipples.

Thompson’s

If you’ve taken something before you’ve gone there, you’re probably gonna enjoy yourself.

Like some sort of haven for all house music lovers, Thompson’s proves popular for many. With its subtle décor and shoebox style it’s not that bad and the music is tasteful… until you start trying to talk to people. When they stop trying to bite the lights on the ceiling I’m sure that conversation with them would be enjoyable enough.

Thompson’s is the kind of place your dodgy mate from Stranmillis Gardens talks about all the time because it’s his favourite place to end up after a coke binge.

El Divino

Just like Ibiza washed up on the shores of the Lagan, El Divino provides a location for all of Belfast’s fur coat and no knickers, north Down yuppies to converse with the plebs.

Yes folks, dress in your best, because if you’re going to El Divino, you’ve made it.

Or so the club would like to make you think.

With open view VIP sections, river-view smoking areas and multi-platform clubbing, El Divino wants to give you the best in Belfast’s nightlife, but fails massively. The layout of the club makes those who are skint feel even more skint as they sit and look upon the upper-middle class yups who can afford the VIP section. Not only are you feeling huge contempt because your loan didn’t come in on time, but a Next suit or ASOS midi dress is not enough to impress: it gets far too warm, and those steps aren’t helping.

The platforms attempt to cater for different music tastes, but instead they just end up playing different styles of house music because, as we all know, DJs have no imagination. The dress code and the interior of the building almost gives you the ability to re-enact the club scene from John Wick.

T-Street Warehouse

Designed to be a chic new nightclub with graffiti designs by artists “Visual Waste”, T-Street is relatively obscure on the Belfast club scene because it only opened it’s doors back in May 2014.

Expected to be a huge hit, it crashed and burned in the expectaions of Belfast’s students. Big time.

Firstly, no one really wants to go to the Cathedral Quarter- lets be honest, you can almost hear your wallet crying walking into the near vicinity of town centre.

The kind of cosmopolitan area where you need a mortgage for a mojito (skip to Villa). If that doesn’t effect the nightclub’s popularity, then surely its proximity to much more well-known nightclubs will. The club boasts rooms with “different music”, when in truth its just different styles of house music (as per usual).

Limelight

The facts of Limelight are many and very fundamental. Here’s a few: you’ll always run into someone you don’t want to see, the chocolate tequila is ballin’, they’re always gonna play Toto’s Africa.

Despite it being super cliché, Limelight is a good night out.

The music is a mix-match of genres; of dance classics, rock anthems and modern hits… your music tastes are bound to be satisfied in Limelight with at least one song. The only downside is the tedium of Limelight’s ridiculous waits for the toilet and the smoking area. If you want a leak or a fag, be prepared to nurse the shite out of your drink.

You also run the risk of becoming a cliché yourself. Those who frequent Limelight are stuck in an eternal cycle of chocolate tequila and Hall and Oates. Not that that’s a bad thing, just a concern for mental health. Basically, it hosts to the kind of people who will still be begging for cheap list in their 30’s.

Villa

Said –said– to be the most exclusive nightclub in the city, Villa tries to boast the super-club status.

Because of the supposed “exclusivity”, everybody tries too hard: brogues and holy-fuck-inch heels are worn and we all suffer as a result. I think everybody would conclude here the mid-week student nights are about as much craic as a poke in the eye. If you can afford a VIP booth and Grey Goose export I’m sure Villa is the prime location for you.

Bot Wednesdays

When you see hordes of enthusiastic teenagers, UUJ students and culchies standing out in the middle of the Malone Road mid-week swigging Glen’s and group-singing Derek Ryan, you know its Bot Wednesdays.

I’m not quite sure if its supposed to be a nightclub, or just the dodgy attic of an old man’s bar. I don’t think anyone minds having a quiet pint in the Botanic Inn, except when it’s converted into its Wednesday night cattle market. On top of this, the overflow that makes their way to the Eglantine which means on a Wednesday night the Egg’s customers consist of fellas in unbuttoned checked shirts and those who were far too drunk to be let into the Bot. (I know, bleak isn’t it?)

So folks, there you have it- a list of  Belfast’s worst nights out. Obviously some are worse than others.

What’s been your worst night out?

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