Chester Nightclubs-Who Remembers These?

Who hasn’t heard the phrase, “when I was a lad”… or, “when I was a lass!!.” I think we all have. I certainly have. The phrase of course can relate to so many scenarios. In this particular post I will be relating the well known phrase to our Chester nightclubs scene. Well, to be more specific, Chester nightclubs of days gone by. Hence the “who remembers these” tagged on the end.

Well without further ado, let’s have another trip down Memory Lane and recall some of these Chester nightclubs. We used to have some right brilliant clubs. I’m not saying today’s aren’t but Old Father Time ensures that my dancing shoes are well and truly archived, so I can’t really comment on today’s night spots.

Anyway…..

Chester Nightclubs-Who Remembers These?

In my nightclubs pomp, there were a fair few Chester nightclubs to frequent. Some of them were quite “nichey”, while others were more traditional for want of a better phrase. You know the thing (or do you?), young ladies dancing around their handbags, crowds of fellas standing around the perimeter of the dancefloor waiting to pounce (again, for want of a better phrase).

Ah, the memories of gingerly walking across almost the whole length of a dancefloor to request a last dance-ish ‘slowey’ with a young lady, only to be told to go away – or words to that effect – once you arrived alongside them.

Oh to remember and recall that humiliation – happy days!!!

Nichey Nightclubs

As I mentioned above, we also had ‘nichey’ nightclubs. What I mean by that, in case you didn’t know, they catered for a certain type of clientele. As an example there were two, predominantly gay nightclubs apparently back in the early 80’s I believe.

I’m not knocking that and I don’t have any problem with that at all. I just mention it as an example of the ‘niche’ type of nightclub.

This particular ‘nicheness’ was pointed out to me while I was studying in Sheffield in the early 80’s. When I was asked where I lived, my reply of “Chester” prompted the retort.

“Are you gay?”

“No”, I replied. “Why do you ask?”

“There’s seven clubs in Chester, two of which are gay clubs. That makes just short of a third of the social scene are gay. Just thought I’d ask” – he added.

The logic of that didn’t stack up but I didn’t bother to point out the obvious flaws to that logic. What it did do though was to make me realise that there were some niche nightclubs. And why not I thought. A good pal of mine used to go to one of these ‘nichey’ nightclubs purely because the music was so much better he reckoned and for no other reason.

The important thing is though, there was so much choice back in those days.

Chester Nightclubs – My Favourites

In my heyday, my favourite nightclubs were Quaintways (or The Jazzie)/Rendezvous; Tiffanys/Cinderella Rockerfellas; Blimpers/Champers and Brannigans. And although maybe not strictly classed as a nightclub, I’ll include Joe’s in this particular section as well.

These were the ones I frequented more than the others.

But what of the others? They were popular and I did used to pop in now and then but not as often as those above. Clubs such as Images; The Silhouette; The Alpine, Monroes/Level Two and one that was way before my time – The Clockwork Orange. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few. Worth a Part II post maybe?

Another one I never popped into was a club called Pintos in Huntington. A while ago, a friend of mine sent me an image of an old Pintos entrance ticket they had from back in the……ahem….(showing my age!!) 70’s!! The entrance fee was £0.25p.

For any youngsters out there, £0.25p nowadays wouldn’t even be half a thimble full of the cocktails you manage to afford. It’s all relative of course. Today’s £XX.00 pound cocktails are tomorrow’s, “when I was lad,” £0.25p story.

Talking Of Tickets

Yes, talking of tickets, someone also sent me a ticket of an event being held in Blimpers back in August of 1985. An event that wouldn’t see the light of day nowadays. It was a “Miss Wet T-Shirt” competition and the entrance ticket price was £1.50p. A lot of money back then.

So before I get onto my regular haunts let’s start our trip down Chester nightclubs Memory Lane with somebody else’s fond memories of their favourite club.

Thanks to regular website visitor, David, for his recollection of his nights in Images. As I say, I did go there now and then, but not a regular. Images was in Watergate Street, a short walk – and on the same side – as Watergates Wine Bar.

I’ll let David enlighten you about Images…..

Chester Nightclubs – Do You Remember Images?

“I was a regular visitor to Images way back when; it was IMHO a cool club-the best in Chester, with no membership per se, with admission restricted to regulars, and only then after an introduction from another known, regular clubber.

I thought it was brilliant; some hazy memories sure, but what sticks is after entering, there was an ante-room to the right, may have been called the blue room, and there was a guy who used to perform to the songs of Alex Harvey aka SAHB!

Smallish guy, slim build who mimed, acted, semi-danced through the different numbers to a very responsive audience especially yours truly.

I really liked SAHB before, although they were too commercial sounds seen/heard on TOTP, this guy introduced me to others in their repertoire, deep, dark and dirty, with pulsating rhythms-there’s one going through my head just now so I just have to play it…

There were also two more mainstream songs played, in my all time favourite list-still played today…

Thanks for the education and entertainment sir-whoever you were and I hope still are, and to Frank for unearthing happy memories.”

Thanks David – much appreciated. A quick note “SAHB” stands for “Sensational Alex Harvey Band” and “TOTP” means “Top Of The Pops”

Anyone have any happy memories of The Alpine, Monroes/Level Two and The Silhouette?

Just with my Chester pubs posts, I’m already finding I’m getting carried away. So, on that note I’ll move on and post this. As already suggested above, a Chester Nightclubs continuation post(s) will follow where I will elaborate a bit more on my favourite haunts.

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