Club Review – Dance Paradise

Dance Paradise is a family business, a highly professional organisation that ensure you get stress free, value for money every event. The club runs from 7pm until 1am and people are queuing shortly after 6pm, the main events are every 4-5 weeks. Dance Paradise is the only club in Great Yarmouth offering this kind of music, probably the only in Norfolk, even so it closes at 1am when the mainstream ‘Tracey and Sharon’, clubs close at 2am. Why a specialist club like this should be penalised remains an unanswered mystery, even so if you arrive early you still get 6 hours of pure unadulterated pleasure, a selection of music catering for everyone’s tastes, you’d be foolish not to go and experience it for yourselves.

Somewhere in the misty coastal regions of East Anglia a beat stirs, gradually building up into solid ‘blow your mind bass’ and getting louder all the time until the deafening roar can be heard throughout the land. The sound is that of Great Yarmouth’s very own Dance Paradise, a dance organisation sent to conquer the planet and rid it of evil. Alright, so perhaps this is a bit O.T.T. but one thing can be said of Dance Paradise, the atmosphere is one of the true happy smiling faces, people wanting to have a good time and enjoying the music. Being a punter and not a journalist, you don’t come to realise the amount of effort that goes in back stage, but at Dance Paradise the effort is clearly shown to make your night an enjoyable one. The Dance Paradise Team, is a team of hardworking individuals who simply don’t tolerate bad attitudes. This probably goes someway to explaining why Dance Paradise sell out every time and also why the place, “Rocks to the ground”, on every occasion.

The sound system pumps out 20k of sound even though it’s very rarely turned up to full whack (shame on you sound man). It’s perfect sound though and offers adequate din levels for the 2,000 strong crew baying for blood.

The level of production is brilliant, superb backdrops and lighting effects and good use of platforms. The actual venue (Tiffanys) is totally raver friendly, plenty of comfortable seats (the comfiest in the land) for those mongy moments, nice clean well stocked bars and basically lots of space off the dance floors. Tiffanys has 3 rooms which offer the best music around. The main obviously being hardcore, 2 & 3 being ‘Mash Your Brians’ Techno, and ‘Swing Your Pants’ Garage. The main room is cool around the side as fans constantly blow out cool air, which is always a big plus at any event. As well as this, it also has two bouncy castles to mong out in, freak out on or to do whatever you want (shagging included!!). The other 2 rooms are much smaller, but offer more than adequate tunes, lighting and refreshments to make up for any loss of space.

It has to be said Dance Paradise offers a lot asking a very little £7.50. Total bargain when you consider the line up and all the things for you there. Security, St Johns ambulance, decent attractions (for a club) and the people behind the scene.

The actual night I attended was the 26th March. The line up for this particular night was one with plenty of appeal. Rat Pack, Dr Devious – Guru Josh, G E Real, Pilgrim, Ellis Dee and Clarkee, were all there, so it promised to be a good night. We arrived at Tiff’s at about 9pm, after parking our car on the sea front. It can be a problem parking, (such is the turnout), but there are plenty of car parks on the seafront itself as well as spaces to park on top and behind the venue. Be prepared for a slight queue, but at least it’s in the warm and not outside along the seafront. (Nasty I can tell yer!).

The search was no different to anywhere else by your average club bouncer. Can someone tell me why bouncers act like total meatheads. They obviously can’t smile and don’t have feelings or emotions. Relax boys, a smile doesn’t hurt from time to time, you might even enjoy it.

On the decks as we walked in was G E Real, one of my favourite DJ’s at the moment and he didn’t let me down on the night. It was also good to see him mingling on the dance floor after his set.

Next up was a man like the Pilgrim. The crowd were warming up now and jumping around like mad animals (South East Ravers do that as well you know). After a journey into the Technodrome to find lots of people slitting wrists and generally going totally mad, as you do, I decided to go back to normalised heart pace. After buying a drink from a very attractive blonde behind the bar, I decided to let it all go to Ellis Dee. The stage meanwhile was now being transformed into a tangle of keyboards amplifiers and fuck knows what else. Let’s just say there was a few quids worth of equipment up there. What was going on I thought? I was soon to find out. Ellis Dee finished his set and the two big projection screens either side of the DJ box flickered into life to show the amazing visuals of Dr. Devious show. What happened over the next 45 minutes was totally mind bending material. This was the first time I had seen Guru Josh and was more than impressed with his brilliant stage performance and party attitude. To say the whole of Tiffany’s was going crazy, was an understatement. In over two years of attending Dance Paradise, I’ve never seen a crowd so hyped up. It really was a lethal show, full marks go to the Guru Josh. When he finished he had a reception the Queen would be proud of.

We were quickly brought down to earth by The Rat Pack. Not my favourite people, Everson Allen just doesn’t do anything for me. Too loud and too brash, why does he have to fucking shout all the time? It was time for a sharp exit!! I spent the last half hour in the Techno room where I must confess I was running away from Rat Pack (not really).

The man like Clarkee was not what I really needed. I could feel my head departing from my shoulders and nearly lost it amongst lots of F words and sonic bass blowing my ears inside out. Solid mash and mind stuff, but you know it makes sense, I can’t really think of any moans to say about a spot on event. Let’s hope they get that later license which all good clubs deserve. An all night event would just be the tonic since the dismissal of Eclipse from the Corn Exchange and Temptation from Kersely Kerridge. East Anglia really has some nutty people, so give it a look for serious entertainment and value for money.