Slimelight

A Goth club in London, England. The goth club. Slimelight is the epicentre of the UK Goth Scene even though it only opens on a Saturday Night, from 11pm until 7:30 on Sunday morning.

Until recently it had no bar and was a private member's club where if you wanted alcohol, you brought your own. I gather that's changed, but the bar now shuts at 2am. You need sponsorship from two members to become a member. A member can bring two guests.

During the week, the place is a Quasar centre. It's deliberately grey, grimy and dark. On the ground floor on Saturdays it's strictly goth music, driving bass beats, pretentious lyrics and jangly guitars. Upstairs on the first floor it's house and industrial which is where i tend to spend my time.

Given that Slimelight attracts all kinds of goths from the earnestly annoying 17 year-olds to the 40 year old groovers who are just enjoying themselves, it's a great place for goth baiting.

Slimelight is named after Limelight, London's most famous nightclub for almost 60 years.

It certainly wasn't what I'd expected. There I was all decked out in satin corsetry and black lace, expecting to fit right in with a bunch of morbid, languid frill seekers, but no! Maybe times had changed, I don't know, and I was never much of a goth anyway, but they seemed to me more like a collection of post-modern punks and bondage fans than anything else.

There's a lot of PVC in Slimelight, a lot of facial piercing and insane, glo-coloured hair (mostly weaves). Some of the girls have flourescent pink and green hairdos big enough to clear a 3 foot radius around them, with pigtails going down to their waists. Many people wear bondage gear - dog collars, leashes, chains, a couple of face masks.

There are also some more traditional, long-gowned goths with lanky black hair, but the whole look seems strange when it's a white PVC ballgown on a tiny lip-pierced girl or a flowing velvet skirt on a 6 foot bloke.

Most sacreligeously of all, of course, some people are flying high on E's, and happy goths are not what the manual said.

It's great fun, is Slimelight don't get me wrong. But if you're expecting a student-like collection of torn fishnets and suicidal diatribes, you're in the wrong place.