Nightclubbing: Full Circle
Opening in 1990 at The Greyhound, a pub in the suburbs of Colnbrook, Berkshire, Full Circle was the totemic Sunday afternoon club where ravers would gather from all across the country. Originally conceived as an Ibiza-style chill out session by founder and resident DJ Phil Perry, it instead became the stomping ground for house and techno’s biggest DJs, playing to a loved up crowd that included clubland’s most influential movers and shakers.
This history is celebrated by a final 25th anniversary all-dayer in Bognor Regis on Sunday 30th August. With a line-up featuring Junior Boys Own (and Full Circle) regulars Farley & Heller and Rocky & Diesel, Cafe Del Mar resident Jose Padilla and a host of original acid house instigators, including Kid Batchelor, Nicky Holloway and Nancy Noise, as well as Perry himself, it’s the final chapter of the club which refused to let the party end.
We spoke to Perry, Farley and Rocky, AKA Darren Rock, to find out why one suburb sent out such seismic shockwaves.
ON THE FLOOR AT FULL CIRCLE
X-Press 2 - Music Express (Wild Pitch Mix)
Djaimin - Give You
SAS - Amber Groove
Hardfloor - Acperience
C&C Music Factory - Pride (A Deeper Love)
Leftfield - Song of Life
Robot Man - Do Da Doo
Capricorn - 50hz
Joey Beltram - Energy Flash
DSK - What Would We Do
Phil Perry
I’ve been a DJ since 1977. I came all the way through the soul, jazz funk scene, the early rare groove stuff, then early house music. I put on soul parties years ago, I can’t even remember the names it was so long. On this side of West London there was always a soul club on Sunday afternoon. It used to be called the Belvedere. That ran from 1978 till the back end of ‘87. That’s when I started Queens.
Terry Farley
Phil did Queens, which was this club on a reservoir in Slough, which is near where I’m from. There was a really, really big soul scene in Slough. Lots of young boys who were really into music and really into fashion. Those kind of displaced, suburban people who wanted to belong to something. There were some brilliant soul clubs. There was the Windsor Safari Park, which is now Legoland. At the time they had lions walking around. On a Thursday night they’d have a soul night there and all the local kids would drive up. There was a big thing in the ’70s for custom cars. You could buy a vintage car from America for about three hundred quid, so you had all these 17 and 18 year-old boys driving Mustangs. There was no such thing as vintage then. There was just old and new.
The Greyhound was a gay pub on the Colnbrook By-pass. It was just a big old boozer.
Phil Perry
All of us: Terry Farley, Rampling, Oakenfold, we’ve all known other years because that’s how we started, playing soul and funk and what became known as rare groove.
Darren Rock
I’m from out that way, Hayes, Middlesex, so was always part of this West London/Thames Corridor bunch of people that would always go out. We were used to going to clubs, events and one-offs out our way in the sticks, sort of weird places. We’re from the burbs anyway.
Terry Farley
Queens was amazing. They did all-nighters that they called New Miaow. It was when there was this short-lived New Beat kind of craze. They were playing this very industrial sound, Nitzer Ebb and all of that, acid house record being made in Belgium that weren’t very good. It was all illegal. You had to turn up at this gate at a certain time, turn your headlights off, get inside the gate, lock the gate up and go up to the top of the reservoir. Then when you got inside, there was this room with smoke machines and flashing lights. No one could leave, it was a lock in.
Phil Perry
Then come 1988, and everybody discovered acid house and the whole thing exploded. Queens became a legendary club from ‘87 until we moved from there to The Greyhound in 1990. Then I changed it and called it Full Circle.
I just went, “Phil, can I play house?” He said, “Yeah, fuck it, do it.” Full Circle suddenly became a house club.
Darren Rock
The Greyhound was a gay pub on the Colnbrook By-pass. It was just a big old boozer. You walked in the front door, and there was massive bar that went round to the right hand side. You could fit about 80 people in there, max.
Terry Farley
Once the M25 was completed, the people who saw themselves as the first wave of house music kind of rebelled a bit and started playing more Balearic records and slower stuff. There was definitely a snobbery to it. Then it became the Balearic Network. Every town that had been at the forefront had this backlash to what it had become, the cheesy piano and really young kids taking E’s and falling over. Phil, from what I remember, called it Full Circle as it was going full circle back to the soul thing.
Phil Perry
It’s funny really. When we started, it was when the Manchester thing was starting to kick in: The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and stuff like that. Everybody started to drift off a little bit down that route. We’d obviously been to Ibiza, Café del Mar, so we thought we’d try and make it a bit more of a chilled out, laid back Sunday afternoon.
Terry Farley
The idea was that I was going to play “soul,” although I didn’t really play soul. I played go-go and hip hop and early house stuff. There was a big coke epidemic in London. Everyone who had taken E’s in ’87/’88 was doing coke and playing slow records. To be honest, it was fucking rubbish, although it was quite cool. It was cool rubbish. The opening of Full Circle coincided with the arrival of doves. I’m in the booth playing Tyrone Davis’ “Can I Change My Mind” and there are 200 people down the bottom on these doves, and they’re all chewing their jaws off. I just went, “Phil, can I play house?” He said, “Yeah, fuck it, do it.” Full Circle suddenly became a house club.
Darren Rock
It was just properly insane. From that first one you’d just find a spot and dance and come out of there absolutely soaking wet. Musically, it was just so diverse. One week you’d have Tony Humphries
Phil Perry
Originally it was open from midday to 4 PM. Bearing in mind, that was the licensing laws in those days. Pubs used to have to close at half past two in the afternoon. Because the Greyhound is also on the old A4, it had an anomaly on its license which had been there since the 17th century. It’s one of the old coaching inns on the road from London to Bath, so if they serve hot food, the club can stay open. So we used to give everyone a voucher for chips when they walked in. Technically we were serving hot food.
Terry Farley
I remember seeing Carl Craig
When we were making “Muzik Xpress” I can remember having my mind on the dancefloor at Full Circle.
Darren Rock
You’d get people that had maybe been out, gone to bed, had a shower, got dressed and come down there. But then there’d always be a few little crews of people who hadn’t, that lot had been to a Shoom party or something else. Then you’d all come together at 2 PM on a Sunday afternoon and squeeze the last few vestiges out of the weekend.
Terry Farley
There were even mad fashions around the club. There was a big craze of girls in the garden wearing clogs and beehive haircuts like something from the 1950s. There were a lot of young boys with King Charles curly perms. Rocky was an exponent of that.
Phil Perry
It became a bit of an industry thing. You’d have people like James Baillie, who ran Venus in Nottingham at the time, Dave Beer from Back to Basics and John Kelly from up in Liverpool. So you’d have people driving from all over the place, from Middlesborough, from Leeds. We had a big contingent from Brighton, Tim Jeffery who used to run Skint Records.
Darren Rock
We would literally drive back from gigs. If we were playing in Manchester, we’d get up and head down so we could get back for Full Circle. On the odd occasion we’d end up kidnapping people and bringing them with us. I can remember a bunch of mates we brought from Belfast once. We bought their flight tickets, ended up missing one flight because we were in the wrong queue, then had to pay for more tickets, just to get back for Full Circle. That’s the draw it had on everyone.
Terry Farley
Clive Henry, who’s a DC10 resident now, was the young kid in the corner. I remember Tony Humphries played probably the first record Clive had done [SAS’s “Amber Groove,” made with Dave Hedger] and Clive was running around screaming. It was like the gang had been anointed. Not only was Tony playing in your club, but he played Clive’s record three times in three hours. It was a fucking big deal. Brandon Block was there every week doing the stupidest things ever, which was kind of funny I suppose. People like Justin Robertson would be down there, Leftfield, Darren Emerson.
Phil Perry
I found this out after we finished Full Circle: Brandon Block, a friend of his is a CID officer, and he said the only reason that Full Circle never got touched is because the local police used to call it Faggot Mansion. Typically bigoted police. Wayne Shires used to come down, Boy George used to come down, we had a really good mixed crowd.
Darren Rock
When we were making “Muzik Xpress” I can remember having my mind on the dancefloor at Full Circle. Then hearing Phil play it and the reaction it got there was pretty amazing.
Phil Perry
I was DJing and Robert Owens was standing next to me. I was playing this percussive, semi tribally track with a New York edge and Robert suddenly says, “Give me the microphone.” It was a beautiful day, the club was packed and there were lots of people out in the garden. He just started going, “Drippin’ and droppin’, and droppin’ and drippin’...” As soon as people heard him, there was a stampede in from the garden, and he started singing, “I’ll be your, I’ll be your, I’ll be your friend.” I don’t even have to close my eyes to remember it. It’s that clear in my mind’s eye. The whole place was screaming.
Terry Farley
Weatherall once did a three hour mental techno set and finished off with C&C Music Factory’s “Pride.” The roof went off. It was absolutely mental. I heard Danny Tenaglia playing his Deep State record. DJ Pierre played his remix of “Muzik Xpress.” Anything by X-Press 2 were anthems. Leftfield were really big there. Joey Beltram “Energy Flash” was a Full Circle staple.
Darren Rock
Towards the end of it, they had Derrick Carter play one December. It was a really awful day. It was freezing cold and hardly anyone turned up, I think there was about 20 or 30 people there, but it was one of the best parties ever.
Terry Farley
I was really into US house, early Masters at Work and the soulful New York sound. Phil will say, “No it didn’t,” and point to the other DJs who played there, but the majority of the people that went there really loved that heavy techno thing. Weatherall was like god in there. It had its own identity, whereas a lot of clubs didn’t. I’d be at the bar moaning, “When are they going to play some vocals?” And they’d say, “Nah, we don’t want any knob-wash in here.” I think it was something to do with Martha Wash. It was Clive Henry who coined the term.
Phil Perry
It was where the DJs came to have their day off. The Americans, they’d be DJing at Ministry, then come to Full Circle. One afternoon I looked down and Todd Terry, David Morales and DJ Pierre were all on the dancefloor.
Terry Farley
Todd Terry turned up once. He wasn’t DJing, he was standing in the garden. Someone, I’m not going to say it was me... People were coming up asking, “Do you known anyone who’s got pills?” And they said, “You see that big black geezer there? He’s from Reading, he’s got loads.” The next two hours were him really getting angry with people asking him for pills. It wasn’t me.
Darren Rock
It felt like a family. You kind of knew everyone.
Full Circle was good enough and lucky enough to be there when the really top-end DJs would come and play for next to nothing.
Phil Perry
We moved from the Greyhound because they renovated it and didn’t do a very good job. They put the DJ booth right next to the toilet. We found another club called Studio 412. We were at The Greyhound for five or six years, then the last year we moved it. The last one was only supposed to be me, Justin Robertson and Carl Cox. Then I got a phone call from DJ Sneak and Doc Martin saying, “Motherfucker, you can’t end this club without us. We’re coming down tomorrow and we’re DJing!” The place just went off. I think that was October 1997.
Terry Farley
There have been all these articles about how clubland is finished. I think one of the things now is that clubs now can no longer afford DJs like that. The idea that a club for 250 people could afford Danny Tenaglia, or the equivalent now, is just ridiculous. Full Circle was good enough and lucky enough to be there when the really top-end DJs would come and play for next to nothing.
Phil Perry
We’ve always done the Full Circle all-dayers in different place. We did them at Ravenswood Manor, which is an old 15th century manor, on an island in the middle of the Thames. We try to do it somewhere different each time. It gives it that little bit of excitement. This is going to be the last one. In five years time, most people are going to be approaching 60. The circle is complete.
