La Riviera - Reverse

It has been my mission, since arriving in Madrid, to find a night out that could rival my beloved Seedy Sonics in Birmingham. I thought I’d found a substitute in the form of a club called Mondo when I heard Jamie Jones was playing there. Unfortunately for me, the only person who shared my love for Jamie was out of the country on the night of the event and, not quite brave enough to be willing to go it alone, I decided, after much self-debate, to give it a miss.

I have since visited Mondo, for a friend’s birthday, which was an absolutely amazing night, but I’d be lying if I said I remembered a lot of the night – you know how 21stbirthdays are! I was craving a good old boogie to some house music; I was feigning for an electronic night; I wanted something more than commercial dance tunes and heavy hip hop, I needed a Seedy alternative!

I’d heard of a venue called La Riviera which held gigs and electronic nights, but what I didn’t realise that the posters I had seen advertising an event called Reverse with such acts as the Martinez Brothers and 2ManyDJs was held at the aforementioned venue. Each time I walked past a poster for reverse I cursed myself for forgetting once again to look it up. Luckily for me, two of my housemates are electronic junkies and had planned, upon the arrival of two friends from Scotland, to organise a night out there.

The night started in the flat next door where the music was blaring. When we rang the doorbell we could hear our landlord, Vladi, who also happens to live in that flat rushing to turn down the music thinking we were angry neighbours coming to complain about the noise – something which happens more often than not in our building!

We entered the flat to the speakers on full blast and everyone drinking. As the night on everyone began dancing and we considered not even leaving the flat! However, we managed to tear ourselves away and took off on our walk to the club. La Riviera is about 15/20 minutes walk from Sol, depending on how quickly you’re walking (or how drunk you are, maybe). It wasn’t too cold so we saved ourselves the short taxi ride and we soon arrived. We were keen to get there before the list closed to save ourselves money on entrance, but were disappointed to discover that even though we were early it was the same price! As a result of our early arrival, we joined a pretty much empty dancefloor, but this could be down to the sheer size of the venue. The venue was unlike any other I have seen. It was one large, circular room, with stairs leading down from the entrance and cloakroom to the dance floor. In the middle was a triangular bar with a smaller bar stood just next to the stage area, and VIP seating cordoned off to the right of the stage.

Although entrance was 15 euros, we also got a free drink. I wasn’t drinking so I gave mine to Caroline and spent my night drinking tap water which was, strangely, tastier when I filled the cup myself from the bathroom sink than when I got it from the bar. The warm up DJ was playing so we hung around the bar waiting for some friends to join us. By the time they arrived, the dance floor was filling up, so we headed over to enjoy the music. The DJs were incredible and the sound system is unlike any other I’ve encountered in Madrid yet. The music simply invaded every bit of the venue. Added to this was an insane lighting system which, combined with the other attributes, really completed the atmosphere.

There was a mixture of people in the club, some going absolutely mad on the dance floor whilst others hovered nearer the bar, the toe tappers and head boppers of the crowd. Whilst the dance floor seemed a bit hostile at times with people often pushing past you to find their friends, we noticed that everyone we encountered in the bathrooms was extremely friendly; my flatmate had her purse stolen half way through the night and a whole host of Spanish girls got involved by comforting her, speaking to security for us and asking at the bar in case anyone had handed it in. They really were so lovely. They assured us that this never normally happens at the venue, so it could be a case of opportunism, but I made sure I kept my bag close for the rest of the night, just in case. The venue was open until around 6am and although some of my flatmates stayed until the end, I decided to call it a night around 4. 30/5, which isn’t bad for somebody who’s sober!

I can’t describe the quality of the atmosphere in La Riviera, it simply feels like you’re in an outdoor venue. It is huge and the whole night was put together so well. Whilst we had an amazing night there were a few points to consider for anyone thinking about trying it out. The bar is pretty small and the girls who work behind it seem to serve whoever is closest to them rather than whoever they can see has been waiting, they also tended to serve guys before girls a lot, so make sure to catch their attention when you can! The bouncers, well, one in particular, were quite unnecessarily rude. When we arrived Shari, one of my flatmates, had forgotten her ID. Shari is 26 and you could tell she was older than the youngest of us in the group but despite us all having ID they simply would not let her in, and when we stood at the door trying to persuade them, one of the bouncers grew very agitated and kept shouting at us to move back and then simply resorted to pushing himself back into us to get us to move. Even when we were out of the way of the door he continued to tell us to get back. The same bouncer also told us to shut up and said we were being too loud when we were simply laughing and chatting as you would do on your way into a club. On the plus side, aside from the things I have mentioned before, some positives are; the toilets were kept clean; the staff were very helpful when we enquired about the lost purse, especially the lady in the cloakroom!

Overall an amazing night, if you like electronic music, you HAVE to make sure you take a visit here, you will be in heaven!