I spent December going for runs in the countryside and listening to lives mixes recorded at clubs and festivals on my headphones. I think like everyone I thought bars and clubs would be opening up again this year, and now, who knows. It was just sad.īut over Christmas it really hit me. It was the saddest drag show I ever did see, and not in a sweet way. (A little stingy, don’t you think?) We couldn’t cheer, so we had to shake maracas. Maybe eight tables, one song each from three queens. I went to one socially distanced drag show in Bethnal Green in October. Even in the summer, when there were raves happening up in Hackney Marshes, and a friend told me stories of everyone sitting around a bonfire, passing around a key, I was like: nah, I’m good. Getting through was just about all I could manage.
When lockdown first hit – good lord, it’s almost been a year – I couldn’t bear the thought of going out. Kevin Brazil’s What Ever Happened to Queer Happiness? will be published by Influx Press in 2022. Atherton Lin is the author of Gay Bar, a cultural and personal history of gay bars across London, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In the early months of 2021, with the pubs and clubs, not to mention the shops, closed until further notice, Jeremy Atherton Lin and Kevin Brazil came together to talk to reminisce about drag nights and gay clubs, and the community these places nurture.
