5 minutes ago this was one of the worst clubs I'd ever been to. Not really surprising I guess, after all, I am in Damascus, and this is, after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, the fourth holiest site in Islam, and we are currently half-way through the holiest month in the Muslim calendar.
Now, however, after an instant metamorphasis, it's one of the best nights I can remember, anywhere in the world. Gone are the cheesey europop classics, the kitsch disco lighting, and the bizarre ensemble dance routines of the locals (which resembled nothing so much as an odd Michael Flatley/Whirling Dervishes hybrid). Instead, dry ice swirls across the floor, bathed in a strangely cool green light, and the mixed crowd of hip young Syrians and Western Arabic students groove to the latest electronic dance "choons" imported from Europe. There's something very odd about throwing yourself around the dancefloor to a brilliant remix of Pink Floyd's "Brick In The Wall" while sipping a potent gin and tonic, surrounded by beautiful scantily-clad Syrian girls. "Are we really in Damascus?" seemed the most-uttered phrase of the night among the ajnabi (the Arabic equivalent of "gringo", "farang": "foreigner") crowd - at times it was hard to believe.
Four songs into the Ibiza-style electro-dance session, the music abruptly changes track again. Suddenly we're no longer in a Shoreditch warehouse, but are instead in a Walkabout full of snakebite-guzzling antipodeans in rugby shirts as the cheese returns with a vengeance: Men At Work's backpacker classic, "Land Down Under". The Syrians love it, as do the by-now totally bemused Westerners; everyone drinks and dances with complete, gleeful abandon. For a second I'm back at Crush, LSE's "famous" Friday night chaos, as the dj plays a succession of student anthems, culminating in the cult Latin classic, "Bomba", which I sing along to, as always, in complete ignorance of the Spanish lyrics. No-one seems to mind.
Again, after four songs the mood, music, and lighting changes abruptly: suddenly Arab pop predominates, Arabesque lighting illuminates the everpresent clouds of dry ice, and Bollywood-style synchronised dancing rears its ugly head once more. The songs are incredibly catchy even in spite of the almost totally-incomprehensible lyrics: aside from the ubiquitous "habibi" ("my baby, my love") I can't understand a word. For a few minutes at least we're reminded we're in the Middle East - though I suspect this is closer to most people's image of Dubai than Damascus.
In the West we tend to forget that a large minority of Arabs are actually Christian - in Syria it's somewhere in the region of 10% of the population - even among Muslims the British and American tabloid stereotypes of a monolythic mass of rabid religious zealots, frothing at the mouth as they scream "death to the West", are not so much an over-simplification as a total nonsense. While there are clearly a huge number of Syrians for whom a night of drinking and dancing in a club would be total anathema, there are many who couldn't live without it. Alongside the mosques and madrasas, Damascus has its share of ritzy restaurants, designer boutiques, and pretty young girls who'd no more wear a hijab or a burqa than something from GAP or H&M.
It's this contrast which I find so fascinating. As I stroll a little unsteadily homewards at 4.30am , a few blocks from the "Jetset Club" I sense the familiar scent of grilling meat and pitta bread: latenight kebab joints. Yet the shwarma and falafel stalls of Damascus are open not to satisfy the alcohol-inspired munchies of stumbling clubbers, but rather the early-morning hunger of the devout, who with the approaching first rays of sunlight will shortly commence the Ramadan fast.
A few minutes earlier the evening had culminated with a dance track familiar from countless east London clubs. As everyone sang along I realised the locals had changed the lyrics slightly, replacing the home of Motown with the home of the Umayyad Mosque: "put your hands up for Damascus... I love this city".
Quite.
