Lakota

COMMUNITY NEWS 30 years of Lakota

written by George Dunn

Last week I was fortunate enough to have been in attendance for two of Lakotas' 30th birthday celebrations. From a personal perspective, it is definitely safe to say that for the majority of these years, a remarkable proportion of my most epically memorable experiences involving Electronic Party-Music have been forged either within its walls or, on occasion, those of the adjacent 'Coroners Court' building and during more recent times, the exceptional and extensive outdoor Party-Space which was created in response to the considerable challenges presented by The End Of Days.

It has been for so many people during these three entire decades an essential space within which the absolutely time-honoured combination of flashing lights, repetitive beats and good vibes which has received such consistent endorsement since before the limits of remembered history, can be celebrated right in the middle of Bristol until it's The Actual Daytime outside. Thirty years ago, thanks to the enterprising vision of the Burgess family, this alluring historical building was woken from its slumber after the slightly macabre and intriguing various half-forgotten histories of its previous lives as an Operating Theatre and a Slaugherhouse and such things, to become the internationally legendary Music Venue that it is today. Many have been the awesome Party-Spaces which have come and gone in Bristol during its lifetime as we know and love it, but few if any could be reckoned to have given so much to so many for so long.

For as long as we have been fortunate enough to have had Lakota in our lives, our enjoyment of it has been acutened by some manner of entry-level panic owing to the latest vicious rumour that this time everyones' favourite party venue really is about to begin some ghastly new existence as 'Student Accommodation' or 'A Gym' or some other such lamentably utilitarian thing.

Happily however, such speculation has invariably and repeatedly proven to be ultimately bogus, and Lakota lives on; not only in our hearts, and in our minds, but on 6 Upper York Street, St. Paul's, Bristol.

Even in the face of Urban Gentrification's relentless tide, the irksome force which continues to undermine this and other culturally significant areas by arbitrarily removing many of the reasons that generated a desire to live there in the first place in favour of up-market housing and 'Gyms', Lakota has stood firm, and its labyrinthine interior continues to provide a theatrically inspiring Space within which successive generations of aspiring young revellers continue to participate in some of the most important experiences that they will ever have involving Electronic Party-Music. Here's to another thirty years...

Denzil and Sonia Burgess at Lakota's anniversary