New grassroots club, Are You Affiliated, to open in North Shields
It follows a series of previous pop-up events in the local King Street Social Club by the club's new operators
A new club, Are You Affiliated, is set to open in North Shields.
It will be housed on the first floor of King Street Social Club, which the new venue's operators had been using for the past two years for a series of pop-up gigs. Announcing the venue's permanent opening, Geoff Kirkwood, better known as Man Power, said: "I've managed to secure significant investment to enable us to install a permanent high performance sound system and technical infrastructure at the site, and turn it into our very own full-time venue."
The grassroots venue intends to continue putting on its regular Me Me Me dance music events at the permanent site, with the likes of Skream, Daniel Avery, Optimo and Special Request having already played at those parties in recent years.
"We'll also build massively on helping to provide a live music offering in a way that not only attracts some of the most exciting acts in the world to play in North Shields, but which also provides a genuinely affordable option for local grassroots promoters to be able to continue and grow what is already a startlingly vibrant regional music scene," Kirkwood added.
There are further plans for the venue to work with local organisations in providing a training facility to help people develop music industry skills, and create pathways into employment for young people in the area.
Referencing the site's background, Kirkwood said: "We have sought a solution that protects and enshrines the existing Social Club and its activity. King Street Social Club is a bonafide working-class community organisation and it's not our intention to replace them but to instead find a way of having our own community co-exist alongside theirs whilst supporting it financially, and hopefully creating something entirely new through the union of both of our cultures."
You can keep up with Are You Affiliated's future plans and events by following its Instagram page.
The venue's opening offers a positive note amid an immensely challenging time for grassroots music venues in the UK. Earlier this year, Music Venue Trust revealed that 2023 was the UK's "worst year for venue closures", with 125 grassroots spaces being lost. UK clubs had closed in the previous 12 months. Legendary Leeds club Wire will shut its doors in a matter of weeks.
