The Beams
The Beams is a cold look into the future of night life.
The Beams is London’s new club. A giant open warehouse space next to London City airport. After 2 years of Covid restrictions, you’d think there would be a cultural explosion, where new clubs are bold and adventurous. Instead, those restrictions we experienced for 2 years have defused into the very foundation of this new mega club.
It’s marketed as a “cultural centre”, no doubt a marketing tactic to appease authorities in return for planning permission. The Beams is diametrically opposed to culture. In reality The Beams is a giant supervised fun box, where the progressive and exciting elements of dance music are a front for big business to make excessive mark up on young people’s want to let go.
There are fences everywhere so you need to pointlessly queue for each room. Military grade commands are barked at you constantly to move in one direction. You can’t wait for people in the large corridors, you can’t pause to tie your laces. Moving in The Beams feels like what airports immediately after 9/11 must have felt like. It’s CCTV clubbing where everyone is watched. Suspicion if you’re having too much fun. Staff not wanting the best to happen but preparing for the worst. The Beams is a defensive and scared venue.
There are muddy puddles scattered across the venue. So we get expensive tickets and drinks on one hand, and a lack of care for the venue on the other. This lack of care allows the owners to maintain the image of a “run down rave spot” whilst maintaining profitability because they don’t even have to repair basic amenities like the floor. Why should someone who has paid close to £100 (all in) have to have their shoes ruined by a venue who doesn’t care?
The Beams has hijacked rave culture. The post pandemic urge to go out and experience new music, new ways to express their identity and maybe even find love. All this has been commandeered by post pandemic capitalism.
The 90’s rave scene was a cathartic departure from the older generation. Young people wanted to escape from the histrionics of war, 20th century human change and growing capitalism. Their parents’ trauma didn’t exist in those dark loud rooms. Dance music is about a moment in time. Presence. The ability to dream. It means freedom, it means expression, it means creativity.
The Beams perversely sells this dream to young people who don’t know any better. You’re being shoved around an anonymous space. Feeling overly watched and managed. All for the sake of a good time. Maybe to justify this massive cost that’s why the crowd had to TikTok every drop.
A sea of phone glow fills the room. The venue’s lights are meticulously timed to every beat, every song mapped out. Experiential techno makes you feel like you’re at Thorpe park rather than a place where music is actually performed and experimented with.
The Covid world saw us not allowed to stand up and dance in bars. All for health and safety. Be seen don’t be heard. Dont cause a ruckus. Dont you dare attempt to challenge the status quo. Clubbing is a form of soft rebellion. People to freely be themselves. The beauty of dance music is that you can transcend day to day norms, what government we have, what are the interest rates.
Is this the best we have to offer? A new venue as Orwellian as this. Is this where nightlife is going? Overcrowded fun farms where the ability to escape modern nonsense is lost on us entirely. The Beams marks a daunting look into the future where the warm embrace of your friend in a midnight room, costs a small fortune and a large piece of your liberty.