It's the home of free to dance, feel, stand and deliver, has seen hundreds of acts and dj's pass through it's doors, entertaining literally thousands of people along the way. The amphitheatre is gone, in place 53degrees and Source Bar, and last night was the opening night. With Radio One's Colin Murray set to play host and the entire student population (both current and years gone by) talking about the place, anticipation was high, rumours were plenty and yes, the beer was flowing.
To us, it was a new building, a new venue and new experience. To the people behind involved, it was all of that plus lot's more. The bar staff had to work a brand new bar for the first time, the sound engineer getting his first chance at the levels in a busy hall and the security unsure of whether all procedures set in place would work.
Making all this happen with 1400 people to test it out on was going to be no easy feat, and I am happy to say it worked.
On arrival the excellent Scissor Sisters anthem 'Filthy Gorgious' was pounded out of the brand new system, walking into the main hall the RockFm Dj's were warming a already hot crowd. The bar was busy, too busy with at least a 20 minute wait for drinks, a problem which will be sorted in time I imagine as all the staff get used to the setup, still, a perfectly good excuse to drink turbo shandy's instead of the usual pint! Everyone who spied the camera was eager for a photo, the results of which you can find in the photo gallery on skiddle.com. Every so often something about Colin Murray was mumbled over the microphone, along the lines of a countdown for his appearence, a matter which I must say didn't really interest me from the outset.
Now, we always knew Colin Murray was going to be interesting, there's not many people's style that you can take off the radio and reproduce with a live performance, and when your radio performance is as it is that's not a lot to go by. A collection of records new and old to bounce about too, the odd comment on the microphone (levels that really need sorting out btw) and finally to capture the crowds imagination he jumped off the stage and crowd surfed to 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', well, the young uns seemed to like it anyway.
Half way through Colin's performance, the fire alarm went off, which consisted of an automated voice that nobody could hear over the volume of everybody's voices. Still it gave the doormen something to flap about, some of which got over excited and reacted in completely the wrong way, getting vocally aggressive with the people who still didn't understand what was going on, and then failed to notice when the music had come back on and everyone had started enjoying themselves again. Made the bar que a lot quicker though, an all round bonus if you ask me. But yes, let's get the fire alarm turned up, and the doormen turned down please.
Upstairs is a smaller area, with plenty of seating, another bar and a dance floor, sadly we didn't spend long in here though understand a band was playing earlier on in the evening. All in UCLAN have an excellent new venue with some massive acts lined up already. Despite a couple of teething problems which are to be expected on any night, let alone the launch, you can tell there is a bright future ahead for the venue and all the students who are lucky enough to call it home.
Let's not forget it's open to all on certain nights, more details of which you can find on the skiddle.com whatson guide or the 53degrees.net website
Three cheers for the Student Union
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