By Sophie Scannell, Music Editor
Bristol nightlife appears to be in a desperate state. Nightclubs and gig venues are renaming and relocating, frantically dodging the growing financial pressures that loom over them, with some downright shutting altogether. Enter: Up All Night, A Bristol Nightlife Story, a photobook from the hands of renowned photographer Colin Moody and musician journalist Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley that recognises the dire situation that modern nightlife is in, and puts forward a hopeful sentiment that looking a little bit closer might debunk this notion somewhat.
Together, and with five years’ worth of nights spent roaming around Bristol with a camera and the thirst for a good time, the pair have created a book that promises ‘a sense of nowness, and of being in and amongst everything’. The book collates poetry, letters, and prose musings to retell and reminisce, observing the dingy basements, rowdy streets, and quietest corners of Bristol’s after-dark landscape that still manage to be fabulously loud.
Split into three sections, the book reflects on first nights out, the devastating blow that was the Covid-19 outbreak onto venues both large and small, and the rise of these venues just when we thought they may never bounce back - a messianic story of a city that shows no signs of slowing down.
The written work is punctuated with stunning photography reels that intimately capture sights we have likely all seen on one Bristol night out or another. The photos are strangely immersive for being sat unassumingly on two dimensional spreads, yet it wedges you shoulder to shoulder with the characters depicted in them.
The opening section of the book, dedicated to first nights out and youth culture, is nothing short of charming. It is a love letter to being young in the city, that will no doubt become heartachingly nostalgic when reading as a graduate and inevitably having to make the journey home for a little while.
Its stories and photos champion the thrill and curiosity infused into young groups of mates as they parade about the city, and the rapid speed at which conversations become connections and strangers become friends amongst this young generation.
A ‘temporary, constantly shifting, pop-up community’ as the book calls it, Bristol is admired for its ability to present a vastly different landscape just about everywhere you look. Venues are constantly visually and sonically changing, some offering totally different genres with every floor you ascend. The transformation of the city simply from day to night is a spectacle in itself, as the book humorously notes, describing the awkward intersection of corporate fat cats and late-night music rats locking eyes on city centre pavements at six o’clock in the morning.
Charming insights and observations like these serve as a homely invitation to keep flicking through this book, sinking deeper into a comfortable sofa as it revels in its stories both old and recent.
Often with recurring characters too, as one particularly heart-warming page delves into the story of ‘Big Jeff’, a notably tall man many of us have likely been in the same room with if you’re anything of an avid gig-goer.
Attending a record level of gigs during his time here, Jeff has become renowned within the live music community of the city. A chat with him in the book reveals that despite his now older age and medical troubles resulting in his newly equipped wheelchair, he is still attending gigs, being snuck in to his favourite bands’ soundchecks by his friends, and still whipping his hair about in nearly every venue in the city. It’s stories like these that kept me sat for another page, desperately curious to meet the people adorned on the next one.
One thing that the uncertainty of nightlife venues right now and the experience of being a teenager have in common is that they may be equally as turbulent as the other. Young person Sennen Uma comments in a more pensive moment of the book that the state of nightlife and live music is ‘becoming more established, and I can’t decide if that’s adding or taking away from its creative height’.
Utterly dismissed in this section is the age-old accusation of our parents’ generation that ‘it’s not as good as it was back in the day’ and instead credits young people for ‘keeping the city alive’. A comforting notion when you start to think that the fourth OMG venture this week was maybe overdoing it.
These snippets of think pieces culminate in a shout out to the Creative Youth Network as a crutch for many young people who were cooped up during the pandemic, isolated from the world in their crucially formative years of socialisation and simply discovering what they’re into musically. Later, in the following section that details the toll Covid took on the world of nightlife, the book takes time to spotlight the ‘Save Bristol Nightlife’ campaign, and the work it does to preserve grassroots venues and advocate for nighttime economy across the city.
It's safe to say that this book cares deeply about protecting what they deem to be a really special part of youth culture. The symbiosis of nightlife and the people that love it is made so clear throughout, and is explored more in the book’s following section on the infamous Covid outbreak.
The instigation of world-wide lockdowns meant that ‘a collective grieving process began’ amongst nightlife communities - venue owners and boogie-seekers alike. Locked away was a culture that so many depended on to fulfil themselves, yet thanks to the unwavering passions of its community, some venues were able to just stay afloat.
The book features excerpts and short interviews with owners of some of Bristol’s most beloved venues’ owners. They’re keenness to feature in a project like this book speaks for itself, demonstrating that Bristol is full of people ready and waiting to support each others’ art. Artistic director of Bristol Beacon, Todd Wills, admires how this quality makes Bristol one of the biggest and best music hubs in the UK, despite being of significantly smaller size than other titans in the game, such as Manchester, Glasgow, or Birmingham: ‘Yeah, we were always up there’, he proclaims, smugly.
Other owners such as Leigh Dennis (Strange Brew) and James Koch and James Smailes (The Gallimaufry) admire the do-it-yourself aspects of Bristol nightlife. Smailes even recounts putting his first nights on in a ‘now defunct, subterranean, pre-smoking ban, den of antiquity called The Fez Club’. Now proudly overseeing one of the cornerstones of Gloucester Road, it’s no wonder that those who own today’s biggest venues owe so much to small and independent spots across the city, often harbouring the very best of Bristol nightlife inside.
In keeping with this DIY nature, nights out curated by the people of Bristol are often some of the best: ‘expect to hang with people who want nothing more than to get off their face, dance their tits off, and meet new people.’
The free party scene is explored briefly in light of this, with excerpts from DJ EL-ZE who touches on perhaps a more student-y reality of a desperation to go to free parties. ‘[It’s] because of shows like Skins and the whole drug aesthetic. Hopefully that passion eventually translates into protecting the scene instead of wearing it for likes.’
It’s times like these in the book that I admire its curators, for making space for questions and critique of nightlife cultures, which is sorely needed in the modern scene, without being outright negative from page to page.
Continuation of nightlife in the face of aversions is quite metaphorically depicted in chapter ‘Dark Matter and Turbo Island’. Photographer Simon Holiday details the gentrification encroaching upon community-orientated areas in the city. He delves into the story of Turbo Island at the end of Stokes Croft, a Bristol landmark where a fire is lit every night for anyone and everyone to join an effectively ‘default after-party’ as they stumble home after particularly successful nights out on Gloucester Road.
In 2023, this iconic triangular patch of grass that had become synonymous with Bristol culture and community was tarmacked over. Those who were committed to the fire as a totem of their greatest memories spent there still managed to light fires every night, quite literally keeping their flame burning despite prospects of concrete expansion looming ever nearer.
They could go on (and rightfully do!) with many other examples of the resilience, adaptability, and indomitable spirit of Bristol’s community. These example range from The Mount Without, being birthed after an arson attack in a derelict church at the bottom of St Michael’s Hill, all the way to venues as big as Lakota, finding its origins from an old brewery and coroner’s court.
Sophie Scannell
With timely apprehensions of Motion’s upcoming relocation, it’s reassuring to know that venues changing their look and space do not necessarily imply the end of its life, but simply mean that reinvention is often needed nowadays to dodge and swerve the ever-suffocating pressures of being a venue in the modern nightlife scene.
The book, ultimately, is romantic in some depictions of Bristol nightlife, but realistically brutal in others - equally as prideful as it is question-raising and curious. Anxieties will continue to circle now that Covid has shown us how quickly a community-led culture can be stripped away from the world. What happens when people stop turning up? And, like a Turbo Island fire, how can it keep burning even when (metaphorically) tarmacked over?
Up All Night answers simply: ‘The people always want music, and if needs must, they will make it happen.’
The link to order the book can be found here, as well as a link to explore more of Colin Moody’s work as he roams around Bristol capturing its never-ending reel of greatest moments.
Featured Image: Colin MoodyWhat is your favourite memory of a Bristol night out?
