Street spirit

Following the recent opening of the new look Tivoli comes Spirit, a venue that looks set to inject colour and excitement into Dublin’s often cynical club scape. The brainchild of Robbie Wooton, the man behind Columbia Mills and Brian Spollen, former dance strategist with promoters MCD, Spirit, which is situated on the old HQ premises, looks set to inject a fresh breath of life into the capital’s dance music scene.

“It is exciting, that’s why I’m doing it,” Brian says, as he prepares for the venue’s grand opening. “I always thought most venues in Dublin consisted of just a big room with a PA at one end and a stage or a DJ box and I felt there wasn’t much effort being made to show people a good time. It’s an ethos that hasn’t really existed in Ireland until now. This (Spirit) is something different.”

Teaming up with Robbie Wooton who had spent a year travelling the world and visiting some of the best clubs on his way, Brian saw an opportunity for establishing a club where the clubbers are treated properly. “HQ was always a tremendous room for playing and listening to music,” he believes, “and we’re trying to get a message across that Spirit is different. It’s more than just a club. I dread the word ‘concept’ but Spirit will be a show, it’ll provide entertainment and that’s what attracted me to it. Club land in Dublin is very boring, it’s just about getting an act and putting them on.”

Divided between five different sections over four different floors, the main clubbing space will be the Body Room – “what once was HQ” – the Soul Bar, a no smoking, ‘holistic’ chill out room, ‘The Mind Room’ as well as the Manna restaurant.

Although Lil’ Louie Vega from Masters At Work played the opening and Seb Fontaine, Sander Kleinenberg and Roger Sanchez are all confirmed for the coming months, Spirit also plans to divert attention from the trend of putting on too many big name guests. The club, Brian says, will place an emphasis on its resident DJ, Cristian Boshell and live act, Mark Lowdnes as well as local talent.

“There will be a show every week, with dancers, percussionists and Mark playing live,” he says, “because we feel it shouldn’t just be about guests: let’s face it, Dublin is too small to specialise. There are less people here than in Leeds, so how can we expect to put on the biggest DJs in the world every weekend and expect our clubs to be full? You have to offer more and go across the board. I won’t make any promises, but there is an ethos of getting things right here and paying attention to detail.”

Interestingly, Spirit will only be open on Saturday with to begin with. “There is a plan for Fridays but we’re not going to be open until we feel comfortable with the way the Saturday night is going,” Brian says, adding, “we’re trying to learn all the time and listen to any feed back clubbers give us: we don’t know for sure if the direction we’re taking is right, but something different is definitely needed.”

It’s a point that Spirit clearly feel strongly about, because, instead of the typically gruff bouncer, the club will employ ‘guardian angels’ and hostesses to look after clubbers, while the fifteen hundred capacity venue will have a cloak room and separate bar on each floor. Spirit is also different in that it’ll charge the same admission fee irrespective of who is playing.

“It’ll be €20 into Rapture, our Saturday night, because we feel Spirit is about a culture. I’ve been putting on clubs for the last eight years, but the one night I really loved was Soul Clinic because the emphasis was on the party and atmosphere rather than solely on the music,” Brian says. Similarly, Wooton and Spollen hope that the Spirit clientele will be as diverse as their programming.

“The best clubs were always the ones that attracted a particular type of person rather than a certain style or fashion,” Brian comments. “It doesn’t matter to us if someone is gay, straight, young or old, if they want to have a good time, they’re welcome at Spirit.”

With plans in place to introduce a ‘smart card’ style membership scheme as well as programming for left of centre electronic acts, Brian says that the club marks a turning point in his own career as well as a fresh alternative for Dublin’s club land. “The Kitchen has just closed down: it was the first custom-built Irish club and I’ve been doing nights there for seven years. In a way, it’s like a chapter of my life closing, but now Spirit is opening. It’ll be about a little bit of everything for anyone who wants a good night out. That’s our maxim.”