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I had finally found my people.
Despite being part of this pre-equality world, and liv- ing through the traumatic plague decade, the mem- ories of this era are filled with nostalgia, fondness... and hope. Because we had a safe place to gather, we could share our hopes.
As today’s “baby gays” emerge into being, as they face their own unique chal- lenges, will they be able to access that same sense of community?
At Evolution, Edmonton’s only surviving club specifi- cally for LGBTQ2S+ people
and allies, the old guard gathered recently to com- memorate the 50th anni- versary of the opening of Flashback. The legendary disco that opened in 1974 in a basement on Jasper Avenue — then dominated the warehouse district where it rose to epic infamy, then finally died in a massive building on 104th Street — may be gone, but the endur- ing impact of the club on those Edmontonians lucky enough to be at the right place at the right moment in time lingers. Owner John Reid’s dream to create a space where Queer people
and their allies could all meet and dance and be together was a radical one in a city with a very private club with a strict “gay only” membership policy. It changed the very nature of Edmonton.
At the reunion party, the TV screens around the club flashed the posters, snapshots and images from 17 years of Flashback history as DJ Mikee spun the very tunes we grooved to (back when they were new); and by the time the legendary Twiggy stepped onto the stage, bedazzled and be- witching, to the strains
of Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” (the live version, complete with huge paus- es for cheering — and did they ever!), the magic moment hit: The past and the present fused and the decades merged and the cheers and the applause in the now raised our collec- tive voice to scream WE ARE HERE!
So yes, we still need Queer bars. Not for me. But for the next wave. And the next one. They deserve the same potential for discov- ery, that same moment of magic, that same possibili- ty, that moment where you see your destiny.
It makes sense that the party to celebrate that freedom would be held at a nightclub with a mission to provide that same dream to today’s community. Evo- lution Wonderlounge sur- vived the pandemic and marches on, creating its own legend and its own generation and, yes, its own community. It’s an echo of the past adapting to a new and challenging future. Just like all of us.
Decades ago, as online dating and hooking up be- came ubiquitous with the rise of the internet, there were many who predicted the demise of the Queer bar, as if it were an obsolete relic, and even the extinction of a distinct Queer commu- nity and its culture.
As if looking for sex was all that Queer people do.
As this debate was hap- pening, I was doing a show in Regina and, desperate for a moment of distraction, I did the thing I would never have done back in my gay bar days: I went to the bar on a bitterly cold Monday night in January.