Lost in the Lights

The building at 12 Dalston Lane had been a circus and theatre since the 1880s. In 1966 Jamaican-born Newton Dunbar opened the Four Aces there (after starting smaller in Highbury). It became one of the most important black music venues in London — reggae, dub, soul and lovers rock. Bob Marley, Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Cliff, Stevie Wonder and plenty of others played or partied there.

By the late 1980s the club was under pressure. At the same time Joe Wieczorek was running illegal warehouse parties under the name Labyrinth and finding it harder to get spaces. In early 1990 Dunbar and Wieczorek teamed up. The club became Labyrinth (often spelled Labrynth) — one of the first proper licensed indoor all-nighter rave venues in London, open until 6am.

The nights

It went through the whole arc: early acid house, then hardcore, then jungle and drum & bass. Residents included Kenny Ken, Billy ‘Daniel’ Bunter, Adrian Age and Vinyl Matt. The Prodigy played one of their first ever live sets there in February 1991. People came from all over. Multiple rooms, different sound systems, a proper rave atmosphere in an old theatre building.

What happened to it

It ran successfully through most of the 90s but was eventually closed by compulsory purchase. Hackney Council wanted the site for redevelopment. Despite petitions and a campaign to save it, the club shut around 1997–98 and the building was demolished in 2007. The site is now part of the Dalston Junction development — the towers are even named after the club and the people who ran it (Labyrinth Tower, Dunbar Tower, etc.).

There’s a well-known documentary about the Four Aces era called Legacy in the Dust. The Labyrinth years are still talked about as one of the key East London rave venues of the period.