Dance to your own beat
- Ye Swan Yi
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
The club night that lets you find your own funk
The first thing you notice is the soft, out-of-sync singing to different songs across the room, the shuffle of shoes against the floor, and the occasional offbeat clap. Inside this dimly lit venue - an industrial space strung with vines and moody neon lighting overhead - people put on headphones and are transported to their own sonic universe, their movements synced to a rhythm only they can hear.
There’s something surreal about watching a crowd dance in silence. To an onlooker, the scene plays out like a music video on mute - facial expressions of euphoria, bodies moving in time, but the soundtrack left entirely to the imagination. The visual affects an innate desire to be in on their secret.
At a silent disco, the party doesn’t come from towering speakers or the hyping from the DJs. Instead, it’s hundreds of individual experiences woven together, connected through mutual channels they tune into. Headphones glow in blue, orange and green - each colour signalling a different genre to explore on demand while sharing the same physical space with those on different channels.
On this evening hosted by Delight Alt Night, the blue channel thrums out alternative anthems for rock, indie and metal fans. The orange channel brings the biggest commercial hits from the 80s to the 2000s. While the green channel caters to the theatre kids at heart with the best of Broadway and West End.
Here, music is deeply personal yet entirely communal. The volume is yours to control, the song yours to choose, but in the end, the dance floor is still shared.
A woman in a friend group flips through the channels, landing on one different from her mates. Her eyes widen in recognition as the familiar lyrics flood her ears, and her lips start moving in time. The track takes over her body - she sways side to side until the song’s climax, throwing her arms outstretched, belting out Elphaba’s iconic roar in 'Defying Gravity'.
In another corner of the room, someone locks eyes with another bopping to the same channel and edges their dancing in that direction. The duo feed off each other’s energy, hyping themselves up. A shy onlooker hesitantly joins in. Suddenly, a circle forms— complete strangers bound by the same frequency, breaking into the Macarena together like they’ve been friends for years.
“Alright, blue channel, get your friends on this channel for this next one!” the DJ announces through the headphones. As the nostalgic intro to 'Mr. Brightside' kicks in, heads snap up in realisation. Friends gesture excitedly to their headphones - some taking matters into their own hands by reaching out to switch the channel for others.
“I think from a DJ’s perspective, you can see who’s dominating the crowd with their channel, and it becomes quite competitive in a fun way.”, Alex Dutton, one-half of Delight Alt Night, had mused to me before the event.
On the dance floor, this rivalry played out in real time - the crowd split between a conga line snaking through the room, a budding mosh pit gathering momentum on the side, and the rest simply a cluster of voices singing along to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in theatrical unison.
“We started in 1999 as an independent club night playing alternative music when there wasn’t anything else like it in Portsmouth." shared Will Chump, the other half of Delight Alt Night. Over the last 10 years, the brand has expanded to Brighton, Southampton, and Chichester, maintaining its fiercely independent spirit while having showcases at Kerrang! Awards and international festivals.
Despite its growth, Delight Alt Night remains true to its core – a celebration of alternative music and the community it fosters. The team roams around various venues to DJ, ranging from their standard alternative club nights to unique events like this one in collaboration with Silent Disco.
For anyone looking to join the next night of controlled chaos, details can be found on Delight Alt Night’s Facebook and Instagram.
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