You can find the neighborhood Borgerhout when you stand in front of the Central station with the Zoo on your right. The big road going to the right; is the 'Turnhoutsebaan' and somewhat the spine of Borgerhout. A nickname for this neighborhood is ‘Borgerocco’ wich is a mixture of Borgerhout and Morrocco. I see this nickname as a positive one, because for me it resembles the different cultures and tradition that live peacefully together.
My opinion is probably more than biased since I live right in the middle of this neighborhood (and I grew up in Zurenborg, a hood not far from there).
Normally I tell people that I live ‘not far from the city centre’. When I want to go out I just take my bike and 10 minutes later I am at my destination. Last Friday evening things were different. My friends all had to take their bikes while I just went by foot to go to this party called ‘Clit Clap’ (Yes, the name might be a bit weird, but what party has a normal name these days?). This party took place for the second time, with Deejays that played Trap/RnB music, and other kinds of trendy music.
Last time I couldn’t go, but people told me it was absolutely amazing and crowded. This time the location was different. In this quite random bar in Borgerhout called ‘Bar Venetië’. Apparently this pub has a relatively big ‘hall’ where parties can be given.
Before going there (by foot for once) we were a little bit afraid that it was going to be TOO crowded, on Facebook 400 people were ‘attending’. We could hardly imagine this pub having an enormous party hall hidden, but we still gave it a try.
It was a real discovery. You enter a normal scabby-looking dark pub with pool tables in the middle not hearing any music at all. So again, we hesitated, was this supposed to be the amazing party with cool music and 400 people? At the entrance they said it was, so we paid the 3euro entrance fee and went inside. As soon as the big doors at the back opened we heard loud music and saw quite a big hall with a lot of people and good music was pounding trough the speakers.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a party with more Hipsters as I saw here though. A bit overwhelmed by the big amount of people we went to the front to start dancing. With a beer ( warm, but okay ,we can live with that) we had to fight ourselves trough the (over)enthusiastic crowd. I was pushed arround a bit a few times as soon as the crazy crowd heard a new big hit and started jumping around like they had no control over their bodies at all. But okay, an empty party with boring ‘in control’ people isn’t completely my style either so I admit, Thank you for the heavy partying, Hipsters.
I look forward to have more parties in ‘my hood’ with some damn good music like this one.
text by Jilze Gerritsen
pics by Jilze Gerritsen