Live Review

Tangled 17th Birthday – Manchester

• 11th Aug 2010

The more than legal Tangled, tonight celebrates its 17th and having been handed its first set of car keys, the club night is more like a Ferrari and makes all the others feel more like a Ford Transit. They unload a supercharged engine into Joshua Brookes, sit back and enjoy the ride.

Warm up DJs upstairs start the night off with sights and sounds projected to give an almost divine feast for the senses. It is a sign of things to come as the animated essence of the night connects to allure the already experienced and intoxicated. Doorways open as a portal to a new world, only perceptively different from this one. You descend to a shared euphoria to the select few as Terry Pointon, Steve Thorpe (who can be seen elsewhere in Manchester) and the other resident DJs delve through a trance, dynamic and tense reaching an exalted climax.

Continuing on a plateau higher than anything in Tibet, the hormonal streams make a strange atmosphere where nothing is simple. Bright flashes of joy disturb the aroused and emotional calm before the storm. The frantic charm is not disturbed whilst the dappled brown of the walls fluctuates between dizzying lights and a throng rattling individuals.

It is hard to imagine that Tangled started in the same year that saw the upsurge in Britpop and from just down the road, Oasis were gigging. All of that is now dead, gone and buried with the heavyweights split up. Clearly this club night has something special as it has outlived them all as it bubbles and simmers until now when the crowd boils over. There are no nightmares on wax or CD as the steam rises as the night goes on, the fraudulent chances swing by as the fool’s gold dances like flames on a fire, less harmful, but just as captivating.

There are no party poopers, less still any poppers, birthday hats or party buzzers, there are treats, in the form of lollipops and flying saucers as the Tangled anniversary celebrates something more mature as the music emanates to the spirit presently untouched. As the stamina continues and meanders into the rare but unoccupied and unfilled space a risk of burning too brightly is pervading. It is on record that “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”, though the fear is extinguished, not by wet towels, but by the jewel encrusted crystal beads of sweat.

Their Facebook Group says “Tangled is Manchester’s longest-running club night and an institution… probably in more ways than one. Running continuously since 1993, we have hosted parties and DJed in clubs all over the city in that time, such as The Phoenix, The Boardwalk, UMIST Club Underground, The Music Box, The Attic, Joshua Brooks, Sankey’s Soap, Aqua Bar and many more (some long forgotten!) venues”. We say, Happy Birthday and many happy returns.