Hip and happening Dublin? My arse. We may be able to con some of the visiting foreign journalists all of the time with tales of "cultural quarters", a new, improved infrastructure and a changing social climate; and we may be able to con all of the tourists some of the time with our new-fangled brasseries, poncy restaurants and slightly-better-than-before licensing laws. But we'll never be able to take our place at the top table of "hip and happening" European capitals unless we do something, and soon, about our lamentable dance/club situation.
It's not just in Milan, Barcelona and Paris that you can go out until five, six or seven in the morning; you can do so in any small town anywhere in Europe. The demographics of the situation are quite simple: the young and not-so-young want to go out clubbing until the not-so-early hours, they want to dance, meet, chat and play and they don't want to be chucked out of places at two in the morning with only a wait for the night bus to look forward to.
The dance revolution, which gripped popular culture in the 1980s, hasn't softened its grip. Night-time in Ireland doesn't get going until 11 p.m. when the feeder bars from the nightclubs fill up temporarily before a course of action is decided upon for the night. Flyers are scrutinised, DJs are compared and contrasted, and door policies and admission prices are vigorously debated before a club is chosen. However, meeting the people you want to meet and listening to the music you want to listen to, has to be accomplished within two hours.
The only way to satisfy the demand is to introduce long-overdue "club licences" where venues can stay open longer (with or without a bar licence). Funnily enough, such club licences, which operate in every European country except Ireland, haven't precipitated a breakdown in law and order, and the social fabric hasn't unravelled. The "dancephobia" that mis-informs our legislation and social perception is largely based on a fear of the unknown and tabloid hysteria about a "drug nation". Yes, some people take E because they feel it enhances their enjoyment of the music, but the majority don't and most of the clubs have a stricter-than-strict anti-drugs policy. With dance music currently the predominant means of expression for most young musicians and the most popularly-received music form by audiences/clubbers, an overhaul of perceptions is long overdue. Homelands Ireland, the biggest dance festival ever to be held in Ireland, takes place in the Mosney Holiday Centre, Co Meath, on September 25th. With a line-up that features some of the best DJs in the world, about 40,000 people are expected in the holiday camp for a banging night of contemporary sounds. Homelands is a touring dance festival, which brought its travelling circus of DJs and acts to Winchester in England in May and to just outside Edinburgh in early September. The Irish show will be over six different dance arenas on the Mosney site; it kicks off at noon and runs until 2 a.m.
The event headliners, Underworld, are a globally-popular dance act, who thrill festival audiences wherever they go, whereas Orbital are a tried-and-tested festival act whose live show is an "experience". With more DJs than you could shake a laser-tipped stick at, there'll also be a Red Box/Influx arena and a special guest appearance by the local Lush club. From DJ Jon Carter to Judge Jules, the Scratch Perverts to hometown boy Johnny Moy, the full spectrum of dance from hiphop to big beat to drum 'n' bass and trance will be covered. One of the biggest draws on the day is a man who, alongside Fatboy Slim and Sasha, is a real contender for the "biggest and best DJ in the world" award - Paul Oakenfold. From the rock end of things, he is familiar for his re-mixing work with U2, The Rolling Stones, Smashing Pumpkins and INXS, but in dance circles he is probably still best known for his residency in the Liverpool superclub Cream. From the east end of London, the 32-year-old was introduced to New York's hip-hop scene while a teenager, and after a spell working for a record company (where he signed both Will Smith and Salt 'n' Peppa) he took a trip to Ibiza . . .
"That changed everything," he says, "there was just such a spirit and an energy on the island with the whole Balearic Beat going down. What really impressed, though, was how in the clubs they were mixing and matching all different forms of music - from rock to house, to r 'n' b and reggae and onto acid house. When I got back to London, I opened a club called Spectrum just to try and re-create the spirit of the music on Ibiza and then all the re-mixing work started to flood in."
After producing The Happy Mondays's breakthrough album, Pills, Thrills and Belly- aches, Oakenfold became resident DJ on U2's Zooropa tour - and it was his re-mixing of tracks from their inspired Achtung Baby album that helped make the erstwhile "earnest rockers" more "dance-friendly". His residency at Cream merely copper-fastened his position as one of the best DJs in the business. "My aim at Cream was to turn the Courtyard there into the best room in the country," he says, "I achieved that by devoting two years of my life exclusively to the club. When I quit Cream, I had the best crowd in the country, largely because I spent a lot of time with them."
Oakenfold is said to be the highest-paid DJ in the world. "I'm sure there are others who earn more than me. I would hate to end up playing purely for the money. I like to think I'm still available for private parties, but realistically I'm not so sure," he says. He now spends his time jetting around the world, performing one week in New York, the next in Tokyo and the next in Sydney. He remains, though, largely anonymous: "That's just the way it is in the dance world. It's all about the music and not the person. There are people like Fatboy Slim whose face would be known because he crops up in the tabloids due to his wife, but because, as a DJ, I don't sing, I wouldn't feel very comfortable doing Top Of The Pops or stuff like that."
He's giving up the travelling now, because of a new venture he's involved in called Home, a series of state-of-the-art dance clubs all around the world. "The first Home club opened in Sydney in 1988 and we're opening one up in New York next year. But this week we're opening up the London branch, which is a seven-floor dance venue on Leicester Square." Before you enter the new Home London, you experience it via a massive screen outside, which shows work by artists and animators from around the world. The first two floors offer places to eat, drink, shop and surf the net before you reach the jaw-dropping main dance floor (beautifully designed and very functional) and make your way through a series of other high tech dance spaces and onwards to the restaurant on the seventh floor.
"What really impresses me about the club is that it has the best sound system in the world - it's technically amazing," says Oakenfold. "I suppose the very fact of its existence is a sign of how popular dance culture has become. But then when you've got dance acts like The Prodigy and Massive Attack capable of selling five million records each, that's no surprise. My main concern, though, is to keep the music real - we're not going to be playing The Vengaboys here - it will be a cutting-edge club."
To anybody raised on dance music as something you experienced in a warehouse or a dingy basement, the quality of the Home venue is a clear indication that dance music has arrived slap-bang in the middle of mainstream popular culture. Home aims to cater as much for 18-year-old mad-for-it clubbers as a slightly older clientele who prize a quality sound system and a no-stress door policy.
The people behind the Home clubs are Oakenfold himself as resident DJ, Darren Hughes (formerly of Cream), designer Ron McCulloch, and, from Ireland, the POD's John Reynolds. And as much as Reynolds would like to open a Home in Dublin, he regrets that the present Irish licensing laws make such a move "unfeasible". Legislation now, please.
Homelands Ireland is at the Mosney Centre on Saturday, September 25th. Tickets, priced £44 (including booking fee) are available from Ticketmaster (01-4569569) and usual outlets. For details about how to get to and from the venue, there's a Homelands information line on 01-4758555. Home London is at No 1, Leicester Square.