- Tiger Bay used to be the scene for all kinds of shore-leave shennanigans for visiting sailors to Cardiff's harbour 80 or so years ago. Butetown, the collection of 19th century administrative buildings, exchanges and flag-ship banking halls, sits behind the late 20th century's benign yet dull attempt to revive this area of the UK's once busiest port. But the money seems to have left Butetown behind, and it sits at night as a quiet, darkened area of decaying structures in dramatic contrast to the lively street scenes of the redeveloped harbour-side.
These impressive, looming Victorian and Edwardian structures hide a few secrets, and none quite as exciting as the recent addition to Cardiff's somewhat patchy clubbing landscape. There's been a buzz around Backroom for the past year. I've heard stories of underground gold vaults, steel bars and smoke-filled basements under banks; I've heard talk of Cardiff's Panorama bar; stories of crowds dancing hedonistically to massive soundsystems and unpretentious, no-holds-barred clubbing experiences. And I can now report that these rumors are true. Backroom is something else. Not just for the sometimes less-than-challenging standards of the average Cardiff clubber, but something else full-stop.
Photo credit: Daddy's Got Sweets
You enter The Vaults through the massive, empty space of NatWest's old banking hall, enticed by the dull-thud of a bass-bin emanating from somewhere below. You pass through a dark corridor and down a functional, strip-lit stairwell into the white-tile lined security of the cash vaults under the bank. And this is where the pressure change hits you, the lights become darker, and the party takes shape.
There are no frills here: no prettifications of the space. Just a pounding Martin Audio soundsystem in the main-room, minimal lighting, bars constructed from stuff found in the rooms and a capacity crowd. And that's what makes this place. As well as the space, it's the atmosphere of the party. The second room ebbed and flowed throughout the night, with Futureboogie DJs in control when I arrived, playing a diverse set of bass-driven music, to a crowd torn between the choice of rooms. In the main vault, residents Dave Little and Clare James played perfect sets to get the crowd in mood for the night's guest, Jens Bond, who came on at three and played until closing. His set of taut, bouncy and rolling tech house from the Highgrade family played exceptionally well with the sweaty crowd, and he worked the soundsystem to perfection.
Photo credit: Daddy's Got Sweets
It was too dark to see for the majority of the night, but when the mini-white flood light periodically kicked in from up front for a brief moment, the beaming smiles all around paid testimony not only to the efforts of the DJ, but also to the continued success of what the Backroom guys are doing. As Jens Bond commented after his set, this was perhaps the most fun party he's played this year, and with a crowd this enthusisatic for every single minute of his set, from first beat to last, massively glitter-infused drop, it's not hard to see why.