South nightclub refit review

This weekend, South was booming in every sense of the word. Following the new refurbishment, anyone who has ever been to the South King Street indie club seemingly flocked to see the outcome of designer Ben Kelly’s work and, more importantly, if South still made sense.

Clearly enjoying the bass boom, DJ Clint Boon cranked it up a notch on Saturday and nearly blew my ears inside out. The speakers, positioned at the back of the room, are the types that you feel right to your very core. Magnificent, although in a modest sized club such as South, they’re not for the faint hearted - more the faint of hearing.

The most significant change at South is of course the removal of those pesky tin can speakers and the addition of the monstrous and much-needed Funktion One Soundsystem.

Clearly enjoying the bass boom, DJ Clint Boon cranked it up a notch on Saturday and nearly blew my ears inside out. The speakers, positioned at the back of the room, are the types that you feel right to your very core. Magnificent, although in a modest sized club such as South, they’re not for the faint hearted - more the faint of hearing.

The upgrade in sound is juxtaposed alongside some rather rustic finishes elsewhere in the club. Some, such as the revealing of original brickwork on the main wall are totally in-keeping with South’s original remit of being ‘a tiny disco dive, dark and deliberately underground’. These design features work amazingly well on a visual level and accentuate everything South stands for. However, it’s the practical features such as the toilets where I found South caught short.

She's loving that bass box

What used to be separate gender toilets hidden away, is now a visible and confused unisex queue overlooking the dance floor via a glass balcony. The new design attempts to make the club seem more spacious, but actually defeats the object as the queues for the toilets snake down the stairs.

The reason for this was partly because there is now a mirror in each cubicle rather than a shared mirror by the sinks and hand dryers like in the old design of South. This meant that men ended up crammed into a boxy urinal whilst girls spent even longer than their usual 20 minute stint in individual toilets because of the internal mirrors. Granted, they do now have my favourite Dyson hand dryer, but when I’ve just had to pull an old fashioned chain to flush the loo it becomes absurd. Perhaps Ben Kelly got a bit carried away here.

Boon army chief

That’s not to say of course that South has lost a soldier over a bit of a loo rant. I’m still a fan of Boon army and most changes to the club are for the better, despite a few teething problems which I’m sure the club will address in due course. Another welcome addition is a treat of an area for smokers or those that have been blasted out of the building due to Boon’s knob twiddling.

Photo by Andrea Andrews

They call it a court yard, which it is, although it reminded me more of Jack Duckworth’s (RIP) backyard on Corrie more so than the pretty outdoor space I’d imagined. Still, it serves its purpose and it also has the add-on feature of an outdoor bar and a massive screen showing artists such as Velvet Underground and the Stones. I guarantee this area will be heaving in the summer months but unfortunately on a -6 Saturday night I could offer little cold comfort to the shivering barman.

Being the launch weekend, the atmosphere was more buzzing than ever. Boon gave the people what they wanted – most of the time. By that I’m referring to a couple of occasions whereby the song choice dampened the vibe. Let’s face it, most people don’t go to South to hear Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ ‘Empire State of Mind’ and I did notice a few South old timers having a good old sulk over this.

I’m sure that kind of reaction is nothing a Happy Monday’s track can’t fix and in fairness to him he probably just wants to occasionally try out new or different material on the crowd – after all South is introducing some new genre nights too.

Overall it's the same old South we know and love. As my friend joyfully pointed out: “Look! You still can’t sit down ’cause there’s drink spilt everywhere.” Hallelujah.