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 FICTION The Cross, Kings Cross Freight Depot, London N1 Weekly - Fridays 11pm-5am Until I get around to writing this page, here's my first Fiction review for DiscoDamaged: "My love affair with Factory did have a temporary blip last Friday (18th), when I finally dragged my butt down to FICTION for the first time! For some reason, I've always imagined Fiction to be the same as Factory, just at a slightly harder to reach location (The Cross at Bagley's in Kings Cross)! And with it being touted as a taste of Ibiza in London, I was naturally expecting it to be more hype than substance... My first thoughts, as I took my place in the queue outside, were memories of Famous Five nights at Bagley's Warehouse in the mid-90s... (they were good, weren't they!) My second thoughts, after I'd been queuing for over half-an-hour to get in (maybe nearer an hour, my brain was ceasing to function from the cold), were that nothing could be worth this, particularly as I was about to pay £12 for the privilege...
"Once inside, however, and with my jacket quickly stowed away in one of the two coat-checks (at a very regular £1 per item), all my doubts were quickly dispelled! Three distinct flavours of house were being pumped out in the various rooms of this surprisingly large club, and I found myself wandering from one to another, unable to find a DJ who grabbed me as being better musically than the others, the sounds being spellbinding whichever room I found myself in. By the time the music in the main room stopped at 5am, I'd sweated more than I'd done in weeks (it could have been the leather jeans, and the five hours of non-stop dancing, though it may well have been the onset of flu encouraged by my terminal wait outside in the freeing cold...), and had a smile plastered across my face, bigger than any amount of drugs could induce!
"To my immense pleasure, I'd found myself drifting at times back to the clubs in Ibiza, from Amnesia to Privilege, to Space and DC10 (and not forgetting Pacha). And to my surprise, I was also a semi-convert to Fiction... Not a full convert, however. Despite its promotion in the gay press, homos were very much in the minority (I'd say between 10 or 20%), and the only person I knew to talk to from London's gay scene was Fist DJ Steven Black. Not that the absence of queens proved restrictive in any way, with the mix between gay and straight being very much along the lines of Ibiza's most tolerant of 'polysexual' nights out, and as usual I had no qualms about snogging any man with a hint of influenza about him (Calvin Klein's Influenza, it's very popular this month). Just don't go there expecting to meet dozens and dozens of regular faces from London's gay clubs. The downside had to be queuing in the freezing cold (I'm just glad it wasn't raining or snowing, as I'd be in hospital or dead by now), and next time I'll try and get queue-jump tickets before I go. I'd be very reluctant to queue outside Fiction while the weather's still this shite. It is worth it once you're inside, particularly if you're with a group of friends, but Friday nights are still much more fun at Factory, and definitely gayer (and cheaper, and easier to get to/home from, with more potential shags, etc...)" That was November 2001, and boy did I have a one-track mind!
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