I think I may have reached that point of no return. The point where I have to give up and say, 'yes, from now on I fear the only clubs I go to will be ones which play slightly tragic old music which remind me of my childhood and will probably be related to stag dos or leaving parties.'I say this after going to see DJ Yoda at Club Academy in Manchester yesterday. I was interviewing him for The National (he plays in Dubai later this month), and it seemed like a good idea: I haven't been to see a DJ for ages and if you're going to reintroduce yourself, it may as well be someone who is entertaining, who does video mixing as well, and generally puts on a bit of a show.
Yoda's USP is basically classic hip hop cut up with kids TV samples, bits of the Apprentice, even footage from Champions League games (although he told me he knows nothing about football). But he's diversifying a bit and there was a fair amount of dubstep in his set too: thrilling for me because as much as I like Burial and so on, I've never actually heard it much louder or bassier than on iPod headphones.
And, well, as much as it was enjoyable, it felt like a young person's game. I listen to this music at home, but the whole night seemed slightly odd in that watching someone playing other people's records loud wasn't actually that impressive or, really, lasting beyond being entertaining at the specific moment Yoda dropped the Tetris music over a breakbeat.
Perhaps we live in a post-clubbing world, where the era of the superstar DJ is actually over. Or perhaps the days of getting a whole group of friends together to dance to music they possibly won't know are long gone for me.
All I do know is that the biggest cheer of the night came when Yoda played Step On by Happy Mondays. And most of the crowd there - honestly - probably weren't even born when that was first released.
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