The Wardrobe, Leeds
Club names are getting increasingly silly in my opinion. It used to be de rigueur to at least attempt to find a cool sounding name for your establishment, but now, in our post post modern dystopia, where even advertising is ironic, we are left with the likes of ‘Home’ and ‘Bed’ and ‘Fridge’. The popularity of this domestic theme suggests to me that secretly we’d all rather stay in on a Saturday night, at home in our bed, guzzling food from the fridge and trying not to drop crumbs on the fabric. Instead we are subjected to the ‘unconscious free association theory’ of club nomenclature which is now the only thing between us and the barren lonely world of pre-thirties domesticity.
However, don’t reach for your slippers just yet, because my fears may yet prove unfounded. A new theory suggests itself: That the quality of the clubbing experience may be inversely related to the silliness of its name. Quod erat demonstrandum: Ministry of Sound. Nice name, shame about everything else. NY Sushi: utterly ridiculous name, absolute beast of a night.
If The Wardrobe is anything to go by, my theory of inverse proportion should earn me at least an honorary doctorate. The Wardrobe is a small were-club outside Leeds, restaurant and cocktail bar by day, funky Jazz club by night. This transmogrification occurs every night around 11.00p.m, as the crowd moves from the spacious high ceilinged bar down to the smoky depths of the Jazz basement. The best way to describe the basement is to imagine the bottom room of the Gallery, run as if people actually cared. The leather seats, red and black colour scheme, and L-shaped corner bar are all in place, the main difference being that unlike The Gallery, its all clean, tasteful and the patrons don’t stick to the floor.
Live bands are the order of the day in The Wardrobe, both above and below ground. The acts tend to be the cream of local talent, with a few big names thrown in for good measure. Styles range from funk through jazz stopping everywhere in between, and the EZ Rollerz have recently added drum and bass to the laid back beats of The Wardrobe.
The crowd is a little older and wiser than in many of the more frenetic Leeds clubs, although there are definitely no skeletons in the Wardrobe. The emphasis is on kicking back and enjoying the sounds, but the small dance floor is often packed by the end of the night as people get down to the funky beats or at least something along those lines.
As is to be expected, it ain’t cheap, with pints coming in around £3, and everything else being rather more expensive. Unlike a lot of clubs though, the bar staff are excellent, and even when the crowds are heaving, you can still get a drink without the use of bank note semaphore. If it’s a more relaxed night out in Leeds your looking for, look no further than The Wardrobe, even if it does have a silly name.
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