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‘There was a catalogue of errors – but once we opened, we were on fire’: how we made Fabric nightclub

‘We wanted to bring the underground to a bigger audience. We had Bono in the DJ booth once. No one recognised him. In that dark space, he was completely free’

I was introduced to Keith Reilly [Fabric co-owner] by the landlord of a restaurant I was working with: “This guy wants to do a project in our basement.He’s got some money, but you should go to the bank to get the rest.” We had lunch and sketched down so many plans for a nightclub that we ran out of paper and scrawled all over the tablecloth, which I kept. There were structural challenges: we took out the pillars that supported the roof to create our dancefloors and open spaces, but went through three engineers before we could pull it off. In our first year, we got voted the best in the world by one magazine – but right as that went to print, Keith and designer Dave Parry ripped the sound system out and replaced it with a new one they liked more, by Martin Audio.

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