007.

When you're a teenager all you're really searching for is somewhere that allows you to grow, to explore who you are and who you'll become.  As a teenager, I found that place at a club called Stay Beautiful.

When I was 11, I found this band called Manic Street Preachers.  I was sort of a brat.  They introduced me to various aspects of popular culture that I doubt I would've found at such an early age by myself.  As I turned into a teenager, I found other bands who were similar to them, either had emerged around the same time or were influenced by their music in later years.  If I hadn't been a King Adora fan, I'm unsure if I would've ever gone to Stay Beautiful, but after one of their shows when I was about 15 years old, I was handed a flyer.  I still have that flyer, actually, stuck to my school diary at the time.

My best friend, Fabian, and I decided that, yeah, we could talk our way past any doormen and get in.  And we did.  Being underage, we were happy to be in a decent club anywhere that would let us in so we could drink, but this place was different.  People were friendly, and not in a creepy way, we were just made to feel welcome.  We went back, and after Fabian died, I kept going, bringing other people, making new friends along the way.  It moved venues a few times and I was never legally old enough to attend until it moved to Wicked in London Bridge, which is also when I first started working for them.  Flyering at first and then when it moved to it's final home at The Purple Turtle, I was asked to do the door.

For me, Stay Beautiful was a place that allowed me to grow in the best way.  I made mistakes, drank far too much, danced until my feet ached, woke up with bruises I couldn't explain and explored different sides of myself while figuring out who I was going to become.  In many ways, I still am figuring it out, but the years I spent attending Stay Beautiful helped that process beyond measure.

No matter what was happening in my life, I knew that once a month I could go to a place where I could dress however I wanted, in as little as I wanted, a place that played music I literally lived for at the time, a place full of people just like me.  The importance of that to a teenager cannot be overestimated.  The club didn't save my life, but it gave me somewhere to go that became an extremely important part of my life.  Working there, I learnt a lot and I had a hell of a lot of fun while doing it, with some quite wonderful people.  Now that it's all come to an end in London, officially, after 10 years, I'm not sure what words can adequately sum up what it meant to me.  The last 10 years of my life would've been radically different without it.  I would be radically different without it.

It gave a lot of us a place to go where we could feel at home.  We could be as outlandish, weird and strange as we wanted to be and it was all accepted.  It created a scene within itself that brought so many people together.  It might've started life as a club night, but it became more than that to almost everyone that attended.  It was part of our lives and, as we carry on through life now that it's ended, I'm sure that when we hear certain songs, they'll spark a memory that makes us smile, or cringe, and we'll remember what that club gave us.

For now...

"Don't wanna see your face, don't wanna hear your words, why don't you just..."

xo