- Subculture's ongoing 20th anniversary celebrations have coincided with the night hitting a major purple patch. Sub Club's weekly Saturday house institution has always been supremely reliable, but over the past three or four years it's been reinvigorated. A plethora of superb guests have been lined up: Ten Walls, Lil Louis and Tama Sumo have visited recently, Kerri Chandler and John Talabot are next on the schedule. There's also been heightened interest in the night's residents, Harri & Domenic, helped in part by their appearance alongside Optimo at Boiler Room's overdue and rather crazy Sub Club debut in January.
DJ Harvey's first Glasgow set since 2001 was the most eagerly awaited booking in the night's recent history. There's little to touch the atmosphere in Glasgow on a spring bank holiday weekend, and the timing of his appearance right in the middle of one gave the night a rare, giddy electricity. Harvey's set was a wide-ranging affair that took in acid, techno, house and rangy synth jams, but ultimately pivoted on the kind of big-hearted disco cuts that leave everyone in the room smiling from ear to ear. Narada Michael Walden's "Tonight I'm Alright" and The Real Thing's "Can't Get By Without You" were highlights, but the last hour in particular was crammed to the gunnels with gold-plated feelgood moments.
On a Sub Club long weekend that was up there with the best of them (Ben Klock had by all accounts knocked it out of the park at Animal Farm on the Friday night), Harvey's set was (for me) just bettered by Tale Of Us's brilliant show at Sensu on Sunday. That's splitting hairs, though. This was a wonderful celebration both of Subculture's birthday and of its current position in Glasgow's clubbing landscape.