How the Glasgow School of Art's Famous Club Rose Again

Before I moved out of Glasgow in June 2011, I made a point to join the revellers at the Art School. Each June, the graduating students exhibit their degrees' work to the public in the main building located in the center of the city. And each June, the culmination of four years work is celebrated with a block party. The street between the Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed building and the union is filled to the brim with students, their families, teachers and the odd partygoer like myself.

As bittersweet as it seemed, I couldn't have thought of anywhere better to help me say goodbye to my hometown, say out in the setting sun with my fellow Glaswegians, in the shadow of the iconic Mackintosh building. JD Twitch of Optimo fame—another Glasgow institution—ended the set with a snippet of The Doors: "This is the end…"—then he cut the sound before Jim Morrison could drone "my friend," and ended his set. To me, it was almost eerie how it appeared, as the closing of a chapter in my life. It was also a little perfect; like a scene from a movie that sound have smash-cut to black. This wasn't the last evening I spent in Glasgow, but I happily misremember it as being just that. It was a proper farewell to my home.

Three years later, there's no dancing in the street. The Mackintosh building still looms large over the street, but it's hollowed-out from the events of May 23rd. Following a freak accident involving a faulty projector and exposed lining in the building's basement, the Mackintosh quickly went aflame. Thankfully there was no loss of life in the event of the fire, but the building's iconic, one-of-one allure was heavily damaged. Footage of the event quickly filled social media feeds; I watched these with a lump in my throat and an ache in my chest. It's funny how much emotion a piece of architecture can instill in you, even from a distance.

But the show must go on, with the students most affected by the fire showcasing work at the nearby MacLellan Galleries. The traditional street party was unable to commence, what with the ongoing structural work on the Mackintosh building. Another tradition - the indoor after-party in the union directly across the road—ergo became the main attraction of a turbulent three weeks for the school's students.

Once entering the allocated rooms however, the pervading sense of dread surrounding the fires is taken over by a palatable sense of exhaustion. For much of the AOR-heavy set by iAm's Hush & Kappa in the Vic Bar, the crowd sipped at their pints, slowly loosening from months of stress. In the upstairs Assembly Hall, a bald Big Brother-type face peers down from the stage and fires lasers from his eyes, while tin-foil banners hang from the ceiling.

Nobody is about to witness it. The bar staff respond to the quiet by playing hacky-sack. I chat with a photographer—himself exhausted from the past few weeks— that mentions that the parties usually are swarming by this point. We try to chat about the fire without mentioning the fire in terms stronger than "what happened." It's the elephant in the room.

Given the last-minute state of flux, there are understandable lags with the event. Upon arrival, the front of house staff isn't aware that hometown promoters Cry Parrot are hosting a room on the top floor and claim that the space is shut. (Their room is the night's best kept secret, a communal space soundtracked by a fine selection of highlife and funk.) Breathing room is an issue as well, even when spread out over two buildings. The security do their best to deal with the ever-swelling mass, running the staircases as a two-lane system, but the shift indoors feels more and more claustrophobic as the night goes on.

All things considered, the evening slowly locates its sense of occasion and a celebratory air overtakes the Art School students. The Vic's dancefloor gradually fills up as Shaun and Tanner—aka two-thirds of the Vitamins collective—drop tune after tune of blocky, effervescent electro-funk. Around me, the good time music finds students become progressively sentimental: over the romantic sounds of Roland synths, two girls hug and proudly holler "We made it! We made it!" To the other side, another couple pinky-promise like the end of a teen movie we haven't seen yet.

A floor up, the beats become more martial with a set by Laetitia Plaedies and the creepy Big Brother laser-face makes sense: this is a room for the darker side of the party. It sounds like levelled cities and "Amen" breaks. I leave early on, frustrated by Plaedies constantly teasing a disassembled Missy Elliott acapella, but when I return an hour later to a packed room, she's owning it.

The second she drops Deise Tigrona's "Injeção" (aka the original sample to MIA's "Bucky Done Gun"), she has command of the surging crowd and their flailing limbs. Next to me, a gentleman in flip flops stomps like he's at a hoedown; on the other end of the elegance scale, I see a girl dance furiously in a sari before looking for more space. By the time Plaedies brings it home, I've fallen under the influence of the surrounding energy—I even like the disassembled Missy acapella.

Midnight rolls around and Golden Teacher take the stage for a live set. Consisting of two Glasgow groups—beloved-by-me noise terrorists Ultimate Thrush and nigh-untraceable house duo Silk Cut—they appear to be the main draw this evening, with squadrons of party-goers slinking away from the downstairs JG Wilkes (Optimo) set and into the Assembly Hall. On April's "Party People / Love' 12," Golden Teacher present a funfair mirror version of P-funk and psychedelic tropes. Live, they sound like the end of all things.

It barely matters if they're any good—even though they are—and what does matter is their devotion to The Beat, which all six members pumell into the ever-growing crowd. It all feels a little queasy, and that's before the band end their set by launching a huge papier-mache cock called the Temporal Bone into the crowd. It's a weirdly primal moment watching the students tear it apart, but it seems as good an Art School moment as any other.

And this evening does feel like an Art School moment—given the circumstances surrounding the School in recent weeks, I felt that the occasion would be dour if not intense. Yet despite everything, the celebration felt like that: a celebration. I returned to the point where I said farewell a few years prior, and it still felt like home. That's something. Even as I left in the dark of night to the sounds of JG Wilkes spinning behind me, I saw the charred silhouette of the Mackintosh building looming over me.

I stood in front of it again, just looking, but this time without the lump in my throat. As this evening reminded me, Glaswegians can be guaranteed on to make the best out of a bad situation.

You can follow Daniel Montasinos-Donaghy on Twitter here: @danielmondon

All images courtesy of Gordon Ballantyne

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