Homoelectric at Hidden review

Jimmy Coultas basked in the glorious free-wheeling rave of one of Manchester's best parties for a Homoelectric at Hidden review.

Last updated: 8th Jan 2019

Originally published: 4th Apr 2018

Image: Homoelectric (source, credit Jen Amelia)

This article reviews the Homoelectric with Eli Escobar event on Easter Sunday, 1st April 2018. The ticket-box beneath is for the next Homoelectric event

You can't always read too much into a clubnight's name, but Homoelectric couldn't have laid their cards any more emphatically on the table when coming up with their title. Although billed as 'a party for homos, heteros and don't knows', it's the former that adorn the moniker and very much dominate the club, immediately evident from the moment we arrived at Hidden.

The huge snaking queue around the venue is predominantly populated with men, with the garms looking slightly different to the standard modern clubbing tribes. As well as the overly flamboyant, Homoelectric's crowd boasts a number of party-goers dressed in everything from upfront fashions to more functional sportswear, with the immediate feeling that you're free to very much give a fuck, just as readily as you're entitled not too.

This open-mindedness dominated the evening. Inside scores of grinning clubbers weaved in and out of the venue's cavernous surroundings, jostling between each other to flirt between the three rooms, which boast loose music policies of techno in the basement, house music on the central blue room and then a more disco led direction in the loft.

Well we say loose, because much like everything else the music remained equally free of pretension or rigid structures. Take guest Eli Escobar, who's rumbling dark house music was peppered frequently with classics such as Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams' and Lil Louis' 'French Kiss', keeping the main room an effervescent throng throughout his set.

The real strength in Homoelectric's near two-decade assault on Mancunian's more staid nightlife has been down to their ever developing and evolving resident roster, no better summed up by the six-hour B2B set from Will Tramp and Luke Unabomber. Dipping in and out of the room all night, we heard a blazing tour de force of house, disco and much more which summed up the care-free escapism which defines the party.

A blur of frenetic EQs and gilt-edged grooves, the highlight of the night was doffing their cap to Easter's religious connotations with Joubert Singers' glorious 'Stand on the Word', the Larry Levan classic never failing to put a smile on anyone who has it drift through their ears.

This is one of those clubs where you begin by undoing your top button, but then end up whizzing your shirt around your head, a giddily hedonistic playground where openness isn't just celebrated but demanded, the type of shit acid house was built on. Manchester, indeed the UK, boasts far few worthier discotheques.