Blackpool and the coast circuit

Blackpool was the county's other pole — a resort town whose clubs ran the entire weekend, and whose venues borrowed from both the northern superclub and the coastal holiday trade. Two of them matter most to this archive.

Shaboo held a famous Sasha double-header in June 1990, documented in a two-hour video rip and a forty-one-track transcription split between Sasha and resident Steve Williams. The set list reads like a who's who of the Italian-American house crossover — Ricky 'Get Down' Garcia, Liz Torres, Octave One, Jillian Mendez — the sound of a seaside town at the peak of the house boom.

Hacketts, further up the coast, was a smaller room but a crucial one. Nipper's live set from May 1991 — DJ H featuring Stefy, Sub Sub, G Double E — shows the point where the piano house was starting to speed up into the hardcore that would dominate 1992. On tape, you can hear the crowd and the room, and you can hear the change coming.