Club M for Magnificent (Suggested Items...)

Member Name: jeff2000

Product:	Suggested Items...
Date:	23/06/01 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great layout, great atmosphere, great people

Disadvantages: none

Club M (formerly the Whitehouse) is situated on Newmarket high street and is quite difficult to miss. It is a converted theatre and the steps up to the entrance make the place look quite grand.

Once you enter the club you are faced with the reception area, which doubles as a chill out room later in the night, and as they don't close the front doors it is certainly chilly. The choice you are now faced with are the toilets, the staircase down to the basement that is room 2, or 2 doors that both lead into the main room.

If you go through either one of these doors you enter the main room from behind the DJ box, one door one side, the other for the other side. The dancefloor is in the centre of the room and is of a good size, there is a large stage at the front that often has live percussion on it, and also podiums on either side for those who like to be watched. At the back of the room is a long bar, above which is a balcony that holds another bar and some more toilets. The dancefloor is sunk into the ground and has a rail surrounding 3/4 of it from which you can watch the proceedings on the dancefloor. The DJ box is raised and you have a good view of what he is doing from anywhere in the room. Behind them is a visual display and high up near the ceiling is a small balcony where spot lighted dancers perform. The lighting is very good in this room with a lot of trackers focussed on the danceloor. The soundsystem is also wicked, not too loud round the sides but kicking on the dancefloor.

Downstairs is room 2, this has a small bar, where food is available for those who can't go 3 hours without eating, a small dancefloor and lots of seating. The low ceiling downstairs gives a very intimate feeling and as the residents know just what the crowd want down there it is often a better atmosphere than the one upstairs. The only disadvantage to this small room is that it often gets very smoky due to the lack of air conditioning, that could really
be done with sorting out.

The music policies are as follows:
Thursday : cheese
Friday: garage
Saturday : hard house/ trance upstairs, funky house downstairs.

It is £10 to get in on a Saturday but I'm not sure about the other days, and it closes at 2, though they sometimes extend this to 3.
On Fridays they get some quite big names in the garage world, such as Norris 'da boss' Windross and Jason Kaye. On Saturdays they have various different promoters in so it's best to check if your a bit fussy about your music, but the residents are all good.

I've been going to this club since I started clubbing nearly 4 years a go, I still remember the first time I went, on the guestlist, to see Judge Jules and John Kelly, it was great, the first club that I ever went to and I continued going most weekends for the next year and a half. Then the club shutdown for a refurbishment and when it reopened they had ruined it, it lost all it's atmosphere and eventually had to close. A year a go it reopened and since then I've been every chance that I get, which is not too often as I am a student in Leeds, 200 miles away. Everytime I have been has been a great night, the atmosphere is amazing, and the layout and structure of the club is one of the best I have been to. The place holds many great memories for me and my friends and hopefully it will make many more. For these reasons I think that it is one of the best clubs in the country, a fact recognised by Mixmag in 1997, as it made it small club of the year. But now after several extensions it has a capacity of about 1000, making it rather large. It is easily the best club in East Anglia (though there's not much competition) and if you like house music in a wicked club you should certainly give it a go. See you down the front.

Summary: