Coco Club

The newly opened Coco Club stands out as being Glasgow's only gay-owned and gay-run venue, but it needs to stand out in other ways too if it's going to succeed. The crowd is fairly mixed in age and gender, the staff are pleasant enough, the bar is well-priced and well-stocked. The music policy is nothing special, your standard weekend handbag and chart but nothing terrible either. It's in this that the Coco's main problem lies: it tries to cater to everybody with the result that it caters to no-one specific. The decor and signage, replete with butterflies, harks back to a different time in gay culture, which unfortunately ages the club instantly. While their ads imply it's not just another homogenised, cookie-cutter gay club, this seems at odds with the reality. Glasgow desperately needs a new, dedicated gay venue, but with current youth culture favouring a more playful, less rigid approach to sexuality, places like the Coco Club can't help but feel stagnant. The promoters clearly have passion, though, and potential is there for them to give Glasgow something entirely fresh and new rather than more of the same. [David Aime]