Dance Clubbing in the 80s

For me, 1987 was probably one of my favorite times. 1986 was pretty good as that’s when I was doing my summer beach thing a lot with friends. But, 1987 opened itself up to something really new. I thought when I found the beach it was this magical land—which it is for sure. But, equally magical were the nightclubs in the 80s. My friend from high school invited me out to a club. The best part is you only had to be sixteen. We were seventeen, which was perfect. I had a job taking phone calls at a pizza place, and after I got off work, I would transform into super 80s club girl. I took my pizza outfit off, hat off and brought tons of hairspray to make my hair big and wild. I slid into a sexy zip up halter type top with thin straps, that showed part of my stomach. I would pair them with bright shorts and put on big earrings and lots of frosty peach lipstick. My friend would pick me up, and off we went to the nightclub.

 This was definitely stepping into something new and exciting. It was a magical cave inside of bright strobe lights, a disco ball, mirrors on the walls, a DJ booth, cages to dance in and lots of guys and girls getting their groove on. The music at that time was full of bass and energy. Some of the bands were Janet Jackson, Afro-Rican, Gucci Crew and many great rap and hip hop bands of the 80s. It was all bass with some awesome cowbell. The 80s knew rap and hip hop for sure. My friend would go right up on these risers and dance in her skin tight leggings and tight zip up top similar to mine. I stayed on the dance floor and watched the guys dance and tried to copy their dance moves. I was so into the music and dancing—it totally took me away. I got lost in the music and suddenly any problems I had, just didn’t matter. The music put us in a good mood, dancing made us sweat and it was a great place to socialize.

1987 was an interesting time as I really started liking boys. It was all so new. I felt young and carefree. It was a time of innocence and experiencing things for the first time. I was pretty innocent and hadn’t really experienced many guys. I had only had one serious boyfriend and other than that—I didn’t know how to talk to guys. When guys approached me, I always thought they were joking they were interested. It was just all so new. I remember slow dancing a few times with guys, and that was really intense The fun dancing was exciting though, and we would go most weekends and lose ourselves in the music. The fashion at that time was fun and it was really exciting to dress up to go out.

The music was so good. There was a lot of Freestyle at that time which was so fun. Some of the bands we danced to and loved were

Trinere

Debbie Deb

Company B

Nu Shooz

Expose

Janet Jackson

Al B. Sure

It was a lot of rap emerging into the scene too—and tons of dance moves which were pretty wild. 1987 was so fun and I miss those days of innocence, being young and carefree and experiencing things for the first time. I think part of it was everything was so new—dancing, socializing in a nightclub and meeting boys. It was so exciting. My friend and I got hooked and we went dancing a lot. This was our new hangout and we had many fun times that made growing up in the 80s really awesome. I miss those fun 80s nights.