Stirling Underground has become a nightlife staple for Stirling students. Now the event is coming to the Students’ Union ahead of its sixth anniversary for a Paddy’s Day celebration.
Stirling Underground’s “Union Takeover” will take place at Venue on March 17. The night covers house, funk, electro, techno and any other records the resident DJs can get their hands on.
The club night began in 2017 after Boab Bain and Lee Howell met at Stirling University and discovered their common interest in music. They began sharing their passion through an Air3 show but it quickly began to grow.
Bain told Brig: “We did that for a few months and then held our first event at Mediterranea on Paddy’s day in 2017. It has been great but surreal to see it grow over the years, even after we both left uni.
“We’ve mainly only hosted events in Mediterranea to date, and we’ve got a lot of out that space by managing big bookings and fine-tuning the sound and set up. The Students’ Union is another great opportunity to bring some of that back to the campus and use a larger space which has its own great potential.”
“It has been great but surreal to see it grow over the years”
Bain, known to audiences as Trow, regularly plays at Stirling Underground alongside Fenro’s Funk. Added to the resident DJ line-up back in February, Fenro’s Funk also goes by Archie Roberts, a third-year environmental geography student at Stirling.
Roberts explained that this is the first student-led nightlife event to come to the Union for several years:
“It’s really cool to see that there’s stuff happening here because it always feels that [the Union] are quite detached from wanting nightlife. Chatting with them, they’re quite happy to say that it’s not something they’ve done. They used to do it many, many years ago, but I think ever since COVID, they’ve just not recovered in the nightlife aspect.”
This is part of the reason Stirling Underground began in the first place as Stirling students struggled to find places to share their love of music. Roberts highlighted this: “It was almost in response to there not being a space like that in Stirling… it was like, let’s make somewhere where the music is sort of the main priority in the selection of records and listening to tunes.”
“It all goes back to supporting your scene at the end of the day”
Also playing on the 17th is Nong Yung, a regular DJ for Rare nights in Fubar, but a first-time name at Stirling Underground. Roberts talked about the importance of bringing in new artists to the event:
“It’s great to involve other people that have got a really good musical taste and are just really chill as well… I’d love to get more people in Stirling involved in the scene that DJ or play music. It’s nice to get folk involved in a good time to share that sort of enjoyment of music.”
When asked why people should check out this event, Roberts explained that it is about supporting local talent:
“It all goes back to supporting your scene at the end of the day… it’s great that you can go out and pay money to go to a club and it’s quite a big commercial experience. But it’s nice to go out to these smaller venues – you might have a better night out when you hear better music than what you do at a big place.”
A Union spokesperson commented: “we’re looking forward to hosting Stirling Underground and supporting Stirling’s students with their event. We host regular activity in the Union for clubs and sports teams and look forward to supporting the Stirling Underground team on-going.”
Tickets are £5 and are available to buy here.
Featured Image Credit: Callum Mowat
Film and Tv Editor at Brig Newspaper. Currently studying Journalism and English at the University of Stirling
