I heart Boogie Shoes!

Boogie Shoes at the Moseley Dance Centre. For the uninitated, Boogie Shoes was the epicentre of dancing in South Birmingham for most of the 1990s, especially if you were a 30 something Moseleyite like me. When my brother went to a rave in about 1990 and had to be ambulanced out due to an adverse reaction to Ecstacy, I knew that I was biologically unsuited to anything more hardcore than vodka and disco. This was confirmed at a party in 1999 when I managed to get high on Tizer - it must have been the sunset yellow.

Featuring a playlist of mainly 1970s tracks, some more leftfield than others, Boogie Shoes attracted a very broad clientele, and I personally had some of my best nights there of the decade. I lost track of the number of men I snogged in what was basically a glorified community centre.

My best friend Sandra, from school, was living with (now married to with a couple of kids) Andy Collins, and Andy together with his brother Sid, were the DJs from the beginning to the end of the Boogie Shoes decade. I was still living in Manchester when I came over to Birmingham with Bill for the first time to Boogie Shoes. And I loved it. In September 1994, I met a psychopath called Mike there, and following a destructive but thankfully short-lived romance, I moved to Birmingham and that's how I came to be living here. Two months later, on November 5th 1992 Boogie Shoes, our romance came to a spectacular end as Mike poured petrol all over his back garden then set fire to it, and later that night, after Boogie Shoes itself, threw out all my belongings onto the street at 2.30am, leaving me (pregnant) and my friend Jo with no obvious place to go. [ A few years ago I told this story - on request - when out eating with a group of people, and my husband Dave ended up in tears listening to it, so hey, happy endings do happen.]

But all of this is just a self-indulgent digression.

Last night Boogie Shoes reformed, for the second time, at the Hare and Hounds, Kings Heath. Definitely scaled down compared to the cavernous MDC, the new 21st century Boogie Shoes did alright on the night, and we had a great time. A lot of people I knew were out, which is always an agreeable surprise when you're washed up and in your mid-40s like me. I danced myself dizzy like Liquid Gold (not on the playlist thank god) and here is my top 10 of all the tunes Andy and Sid played (not in order):

1. Last night a DJ saved my life - Indeep

2. You've got the love - Candi Staton

3. The Night - Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

4. I feel love - Donna Summer

5. Step on - Happy Mondays

6. I believe in miracles - Jackson Sisters

7. Superstition - Stevie Wonder

8. Everybody dance - Chic

9. Thinking of you - Sister Sledge

10. Is it love you're after? - Rose Royce

Thanks everyone for a great night. Knees were twinging by the end though.