expecting 8,500 on their birthday night alone. DJ Magazine voted Fabric the best club in the world in 2007 and 2008. The secret of their success is authenticity. “The Guettas and Aviciis of this world don’t perform at our place. We’ve turned down about £16 million-worth of offers over the years. We only book DJs who have vision and passion,” says Reilly.
1:15am
Room 1 is the centre of this party temple. Its bare brick walls reach 10m into the air. Fat metal pipes run along the ceiling. Green laser beams cut through the screen of fog. The decks are barely raised off the floor and are surrounded by a Perspex/metal fence about 2m high. You can hardly see the DJ, and that’s deliberate,
because the music takes the spotlight here, and it comes belting at every angle down onto hundreds of people from four huge speakers hanging on the walls. The floor has 400 sensors that turn sound waves into vibrations. The bass throbs so hard that your knees shudder while you dance.
4:15am
A beefy security guy watches over the metal door next to the club cash machine. Only those wearing a gold-coloured, plastic bangle with “rock star” written on it can get past. This is the green room where the important people hang out. Or the people who think they’re important. There must be 40 A-listers in a small, red room about 15m2. It’s hot and sticky. The little fan in the corner is hopelessly out of its depth.
THE BASS THROBS SO HARD THAT YOUR KNEES SHUDDER WHILE YOU DANCE
4:18am
Normski is one true rock star among those wearing rockstar bangles. He has a grey beard, gravelly voice and glittering eyes. There is always someone tapping him on the shoulder or hugging him. Normski taught many of the people here about house music. In the late 1980s, he presented British TV’s first-ever dance music TV programme, Dance Energy. The veteran partygoer’s self-assured motto is, “I don’t need night life. Night life needs me.” He has been a regular at Fabric for 15 years. “The place has hardly changed on the outside,” he says, “but that’s fine. People come for the music, to see the Champions League of the DJ world perform. I have met DJs throughout the whole world, humongous DJs, megastars. And if you say to them, where would you most like to play, everyone of them will tell you: Fabric.”
There are 245 staff at Fabric for the biggest night of the year, from bar personnel to the bouncers and the DJs themselves. One of them is Craig Richards (top row, second from right). He has been at the decks in Room 1 since the opening night 15 years ago. Bottom row, right: DJ James Jackson and club-scene veteran Normski chat backstage about the club’s early days
83