Trade gay club

Every gay club to have come on the scene since Trade opened its doors in has tried to emulate its gay. Trade was a trade haven for post 3 AM party boys. This weekend, after 25 years, it will close its doors for good in one final, flamboyant swan song. I first went to Trade in I never did find out why he started letting me skip the queue every Sunday, but since his side-eye could fuck with even the hardest queer, I never asked.

Through the door and club an elaborate metal staircase, we spilled out onto the heaving mess: blokes, bears, lesbians, transsexuals, not-sure-yets, and their straight mates. I took my first pill there technically, it was just half, but it was enough. Under those lasers we celebrated life away from a judgmental British culture that was yet to accept us.

Trade was part Berghain, part Studio Visually, like its organizer Laurence Malice, it was camp and flamboyant and outrageous, everything presented with a sardonic sexualized humor. This was, after all, the man who, indropped his trousers and flashed his pants on stage at Trade in Le Palace, Paris, in protest at the French government testing nuclear weapons on islands in the South Pacific.

David Guetta, who was running Le Palace at the time, never invited him back. Madonna famously visited, as did Jean Paul Gaultier. Bjork crowd-surfed, and even Posh and Becks popped in. Did Grace Jones go once? Apparently yes. And no, depending who you ask. We do know that Malice took glee in having a Princess Diana lookalike swan across the dance floor and give a short wave before disappearing.

What we do know for sure is that Cher was turned away.

Pink plaque for gay club night that ‘changed people’s lives’

Her entourage and demands for a VIP area could not be met. Axl Rose got told to fuck off too when he came to the door not long after making club homophobic comments in the press. I remember the one-night stands, minute toilet romances, dickheads, and divas. It was at Trade I kissed the boy who would later become my soulmate, and a girl who is still my best friend.

I even snogged two straight women in their 40s because they gave me my first line of coke. Trade earned a kind of respect from the mainstream dance music industry that other British gay events had never quite commanded. By the mids, it had begun to host events across Europe, notably in Ibiza with Manumission.

Trade inevitably became a victim of its success as other venues petitioned to open later too. It re-imagined itself staging trade events, with the birthday parties becoming annual gay for old friends as new scene faces went elsewhere.