HEAVEN

[click the pix to enter the Heaven 2004 Gallery]

Under The Arches, Villiers Street, London WC2 6NG
Web: heaven-london.com [Saturdays]

Weekly - Saturdays 10.00pm-5am

With 2004 marking the 21st anniversary of my first visit to Heaven - I've even got pictures, take a look at the archive, as these are my very first club photos - you'd think I'd have more to say about this club than any other...

And it's finally beginning to look like I have!

Heaven has been there for me longer than any other club, and in 2003, finally under gay ownership, it looks like it might finally become London's premier gay club once again...

The days of Ian Levine are now a dim and distant memory, when I spent many years dancing to the repetitive hi-energy beat of Ian's remixes (and nothing else), until I could finally take no more, and moved on to the London Apprentice, where there was more on offer than just music and lights.

When I started back on the club scene in the late 90s, Heaven readily became one of the first clubs I returned to, doubtless aided by the presence of Millie on the door, and definitely aided by the beautiful Wayne G behind the decks as main floor resident. As my visits became increasingly regular, Wayne became kind of a DJ god, for the spell he wove on me, the then-bar manager Gordon John being my bar god, always ready with a beer for me!

With highlights including the Demolition Party and subsequent New Dawn, Heaven became my number one club of choice, until they made the fateful error of sending Wayne and Gordon to my second home of Ibiza, where they were to play at soon-to-be legendary Ibiza club, La Troya Asesina. What happened next has been told repeatedly on other pages, but after my taste of Amnesia in 2000, I never looked on little old Heaven in the same light again, and soon found myself straying with other venues, other promoters, and worse than that, cheating on Wayne with other DJs!

2003, however, looks like the year when Heaven flexes its gay muscles for the first time in many years, and may finally regain the credibility lost to so many clubs, for so many reasons...

As Heaven nudges its 25th anniversary in November 2004, the club goes from strength-to-strength. With some of the hottest DJs on the gay scene in London gracing the Star Bar on Saturday nights, including the Sharp Boys, Alan X and Per QX, and Wayne G playing his still-unique sound on the main floor, Heaven can do no wrong. Now able to boast 5 rooms of music, with the reintegration of the old Soundshaft into the body of the main club on Saturday nights, and the only sexy go-gos out of all the gay clubs, clubbers are rediscovering Heaven as the best attitude-free club in London, with some of the best music to boot!

Who'd have thought it? Not only was Heaven's 25th birthday party tinged with sadness, as Wayne G temporarily retired from the main floor decks (don't feel too sad, he's having a very good time recording an album in Australia), but the following week the club took a hop, skip and a jump into the 21st Century with a radically updated music policy, and a new(ish) line-up of main floor DJs... It's taken a few months to find its feet, but Heaven at its best can now hold its head up alongside DTPM in terms on both the quality of its music, and the quality of its sound and lighting systems.

For me, the best thing to happen at Heaven, during my 21 years as a regular punter, was the Bora-Bora UK party in November 2004 (check out the EVENTS section on this site), but I suspect it won't be long before Saturday nights at Heaven become something clubbers throughout Europe get excited about, not least because of La Troya Asesina making its London and UK debut at Heaven, on Saturday 5th March... See you there?

Martin
xx