Everything we’ll miss about Fez now that it’s gone forever

The sad news of Fez’s closure was truly a shock. Not a shock because it’s closed down (I mean, who didn’t see that coming at some point), but a shock because we didn’t think we truly realised how sad our lives have become given that we’ll actually miss standing in that Friday queue for two hours and paying an extortionate amount of three pounds to check in a coat that we can’t possibly bear to keep wearing for more than 30 seconds upon entry.

Everyone has to admit that there’s a sweaty, cramped, tiny Fez-shaped hole in our hearts that we’re not quite sure how to fill. And to all the Freshers who never got the chance to experience the one-of-a-kind smoke and strobe light extravaganza that is Fez, we are truly sorry. Here are just some of the things that we’re going to miss about the moistest (literally) night out in Cambridge:

The weekly debate with your friends over which club to go to

Cambridge nights out are weird: who on earth decided that Sunday and Wednesdays should be the biggest nights out of the week? Even though the Cambridge week starts on a Thursday, there’s just something so enticing about a Friday night booze-up, particularly the prospect of no 9ams (unless you’re a Natsci) and college brunch waiting for you the next morning. 

When we arrived at Cambridge, we all had dreams of having intellectual debates about the meaning of life in classy bars at 2 am. Little did we know, the closest we’d get to this was the heated Friday Cindies vs. Friday Fez debate every single week.

Your opinion on this touchy subject was incredibly important and was truly a factor that either made or broke a friendship. In the process of writing this, we’ve discovered that while Katie claims to have had some surprisingly good nights out in Fez and actually really enjoyed it as a Fresher, Charissa was and always will be a stan of Friday Cindies. We don’t really know how our working relationship can move forward from here. 

Charissa definitely didn’t submit this (Credit: Camfess via Facebook)

The music, smoking area, and where your tinder match was going were all important factors in deciding which club to go to, and when you’d finally manage to convince everyone that you were going to have the night of your life at Fez, you had a big responsibility to make sure it was perfect (especially because there was literally a 0.1 per cent chance you’re HipHop/RnB-loving friends would ever be able to enjoy themselves dancing to Arctic Monkeys). 

Now that Cindies and Fez are both disappearing, our Friday nights will never be the same. Friday Lola’s anyone? 

Getting to the club and it being empty

After coercing everyone to come to Fez, you’d get there and it would be as empty as the college library on a Sunday morning. You’d make a joke about at least having the entire dance floor to yourselves to try and disguise the tragicness. 

Still, somehow, within twenty minutes the club would be absolutely packed, and you’d be dancing against strangers and having to barge your way to the bar. Making sexy eye contact with the bartender to get your drinks quicker never works and this eats away at your self-esteem every time you go there. 

If you and your mates were still on the dancefloor at 3 am, you would, of course, be the only people there. The DJ will have been playing the same techno track on loop for thirteen minutes and very soon the bouncer would tap you on the shoulder and ask you to leave. The pride you should have felt for being the only people at this anti-social university awake at such a late hour is immediately cancelled out by the fact that you enjoyed the night enough to stay until the end.

Straight facts (Credit: Camfess via Facebook)

Two words: Jaeger bombs 

Okay so technically it’s one word, but the point is that when you discovered the app for buying discounted drinks at Fez, your life changed forever. Cindies and their 4 for £10 jaegerbombs could never. Ladies, we are getting drunk drunk tonight. 

Sweat, sweat, sweat

Ogres may have layers but if I wear any to Fez I’ll pass out (Credit: Camfess via Facebook)

Nothing more needs to be said, really.

The ceiling dripping on you

It cannot be stressed enough that if there’s one word to describe Fez, it’s damp. Brush against the wall and your arm is soaked, mysterious drops from the ceiling are constantly landing on your head. Forget going back with someone at the end of the night, the only thing getting action tonight is your shower. 

Going to the toilets was a wild expedition

It took about five minutes to get through the crowds with your pals to the toilets, and you could never make it up the stairs without bumping into your supo partner/college dad/ random person you vaguely know from fresher’s.

Once you got to the toilet’s, you’d of course ask your friend to hold the cubicle door with their foot before one day realising that the lock was at THE TOP of the door the whole time. And if you’re honest, even after you made this groundbreaking discovery and went back to Fez again, you were too drunk to remember this knowledge and continued to ask people to hold the door whilst you classically hovered over the toilet seat in an attempt to avoid the grossness that was those toilets.  

The smoking area

The Fez smoking area was hands-down the worst in Cambridge. Let’s be real, it was hardly a smoking area and it was forever in the shadow of the superior Cindies in this regard.

Even then, regardless of whether or not you smoked, it was a mandatory part of the night in order to relieve yourself from the sauna of the dancefloor. Somehow, the general commotion of the queue was louder than the inside of the club and you’d only be able to hack it for a maximum of ten minutes before heading back inside. 

Still, the huge thrill of being able to watch everyone queuing to enter the club (seriously, who even queues for Fez?) whilst you got to float back in like a V.I.P. was a feeling like no other. 

The loneliest smoking area experience in Cambridge (Credit: Katie Thacker)

Stealing the weird decor

The unique selling point of Fez was the whole Morrocan bar theme and the fancy chairs and tables that we don’t think anyone ever sat on.

But Fez also magically transformed itself to host iconic themed club nights such as Avant-Gardening, Turf and Arcsoc, and there’s nothing we’ll miss more than tearing a random A3 poster of origami off the staircase walls or covering yourself in those green vine decorations that every college has used for a jungle-themed bop at some point in the distant past.

If you weren’t at Fez for the iconic Indie music then you were there for the opportunity to give your Cambridge room a brand new look.

Who needs Vinyl when you’ve got vine leaves? (Credit: Charissa Cheong)

Speaking of music… 

Fez was versatile. From nights of *oonts-oonts* music and student DJs to 2000s nights full of freshers screaming along to Avril Lavigne, Fez was home to all and every random club night that had no other place to go. 

But honestly, the amount of propaganda we could spew for Friday is unending. The free T-shirts were more valuable than a Blue’s fleece and the music was a fourteen-year-old boy’s wet dream. Where else could you go to hear non-stop indie-pop and prove your #edginess as you scream along to all the words of Chelsea dagger?

Friday Fez was truly the home of the boys who weren’t just social smokers and who told you that you probably wouldn’t have heard of their favourite band because they’re quite “underground”, before admitting it was Arctic Monkeys. 

The commitment of the club photographers

Tag yourself, I’m the one in the skanky outfit (Credit: Camfess via Facebook)

Quite simply, none of the other club photographers could compete with the commitment of the paps at Fez’s. Without fail, we would all wake up on a Saturday morning to see some horrific photo of ourselves plastered all over their Facebook page. Begging them to take a photo of you and the bestie you made five minutes beforehand always seemed like the most amazing idea at the time, even if it did leave us feeling humbled the next morning. 

At least the photographers’ photos weren’t as blurry as ours always were (Credit: Charissa Cheong)

Its proximity to Van of Life

Hands down, the best part of Fez was just how close it was to Van of Life. Going down the passageway to Market square left you feeling like an explorer and seeing the big blue van waiting for you was honestly a godsend. 

Cheesy chips = cheesy grins (Photo credits: Fenna Agnew)

There was NO excuse for your friends to moan that it was out of the way or that we had food at home, and it provided the perfect afters, as you bumped into all the inferior souls who had mistakenly opted to go to Friday Cindies or worse still, Spoons. 

So there we have it. Fez is gone and we’re not sure if anything can ever replace its unique Moroccan-Sauna vibe. Despite its reputation for being the worst club in Cambridge, there’ll never be another club that’s able to take its seriously iconic place. If anyone fancies using their trust fund to fork out the £28,244 business rate it’s currently being listed for, you will have our eternal love and affection.

 If not, we’ll see you all at Friday Revs once the vaccine’s been rolled out x

Feature Image Credit: Katie Thacker 

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