petewsheff

Great nights, small dance floor and if you got next to Booper you'd get sprayed with his sweat . Some great sounds played Easy Baby, Laws of love etc.

Remember it well.... strip search at the cop shop, the magistrates fine, them were the days

It started to get busy 2nd week onwards, about 2 or 3 months in, DS had a purge and arrested a lot of people and gear dried up, then quite a few people who had been going to nighters for a few years stopped going, nighters without gear and all that. Wasn't long though before a lot of new faces started going. In 74 wasn't there articles in papers about 'this place in Wigan'? and people dancing all night? , the place started to get packed. I remember Martin Ellis doing a short spot DJing and really had the place rocking. There was a rumour DS had a word with management and he was told he could not do another spot, don't know if it was 100% true.

I was there on the first night it opened. There were no restrictions on numbers. There was a very small crowd about AROUND 200 maybe a few more. The opening week was marred by a lot of rumours about DS going to be there after what happened at VaVa's and that was one reason crowd was small. The second week when word got out about it being a decent venue the crowd was larger but there were big queues due to people having to get their membership cards before they could get in, even then it was not full.

You weren't there!

Sorry! Packed to the roof???? There was only about 200 people the first night at Wigan.

The scene was needing a regular Saturday night all nighter at the time. But that first night, Winstanley and Fishwick just had played out youth club sounds, all I remember hearing was 'Agent double o soul' must have been played about a dozen times. Only about a couple of hundred people there first night, then word got out that the venue was ok and numbers started to increase in the following weeks. If it was not for people asking for Kev Roberts to be given a chance to play his sounds, as he had one of the best boxes at the time, Casino might not have lasted past those first few weeks.

Just shows how you can lose touch with people. Just seen this about Dave. As per Chris above, they were good nights at Daves back in 73. Chris, Shaun and myself and sometimes Gus. Remember many a time seeing him up a cradle, window cleaning on Redgates building on Monday morning after all nighters, shouting down asking if i'd got any gear?. I remember once him telling us he had some grass to sell and it was good stuff. Well! It certainly was grass, council had just cut that big hill behind Midland station , spent time at his flat opposite barracks as well when he was with Karen, think just about everyone who was anybody on the scene went to that flat Russell Davy, Pete Tildsley, Maria, Andy Wilson also Dodger and his girlfriend lived in flat above him for a while, just to name a few. Counted Dave and Wendy as mates, proper all nighter people. R.I.P Dave Pete

This! My time 72 Torch and everywhere up 77

Very sad news! Top DJ back in the day..RIP mate

Sams started as a Sunday Soul night. DJ'S had no current sounds so the only way we could hear them was to lend records for them to play. This was just before Wigan opened. Once Wigan started JV then started turning up there and buying sounds. It was about them the All Nighters Started, Kegsy is right there was no difference between what was being played anywhere else at that time.