- The cosy new club ticks all the right boxes.
- Glasgow is well known for its thriving nightlife. Every weekend, a wealth of club nights and events cater to a diverse audience. The scene's newest club, 500 GWR, which takes over from the student-friendly venue known as Viper in the city's West End, threw open its doors for the first time on Friday. It delivered on its promise of a new clubbing ethos, helped enormously by its no-photo policy.
Sometime before midnight I walked up a steep, narrow flight of stairs and pushed open a set of heavy doors. I was hit with the sounds and sights of a party in full swing. The intimate space was dark, sweaty and crowded. On one side of the club, the queue for the bar was three-deep, while on the other, the large dance floor was crammed with people, mostly young, student types. The vibe was somewhere between a flat party and a warehouse rave. It felt quintessentially Glaswegian—boisterous, welcoming and unpretentious.
A Funktion-One system saturated the venue with sound as Illyus & Barrientos thumped out joyful, high-energy house. When the Tensnake classic "Coma Cat" exploded through the speakers, dancers clambered onto the few tables to the right of the DJ booth. Strobing red lights cut through the darkness, illuminating the smiling faces. The other special guests, billed as Unusual Suspects, were fellow Glaswegians Raeside and Frazier. Given it was the launch party, the club might have gone with a more diverse lineup, though each set was met with enthusiasm.
No-photo policies at clubs certainly aren't new. But rather than enforce the rule Berghain-style, 500GWR chose only to discourage photos on the dance floor. Apart from a single "No Pics" sign above the bar, there was nothing explicitly preventing people from snapping away. Yet the atmosphere was one of compliance and even solidarity, and the effect on the overall vibe was palpable. When Frazier dropped a banger by Wex 10, no phones were held aloft to capture the moment on video. A young guy beside me grinned and offered a fist-bump before turning his full attention back to the task at hand: dancing.