Phuket has seen an explosion in nightclubs and discotheques over the last few years with the opening of Clublime, D-Club, Seduction, and more recently Hollywood Discotheque, which opened only last month. Blend this together with long time establishments such as Tiger, Banana and Tai Pan, and you have a well-saturated market place offering everything from chart music, dance and hip-hop to trance, electro and the kitchen sink.

The newest edition to Phuket’s thriving disco scene is Club53. I was eagerly anticipating the grand opening party, and even dusted off my old glow sticks and adorned my symbolic white gloves in preparation. Club53 is situated on the corner of Soi Bangla, underneath the infamous Rock Hard Go-Go, and set within the premises that were formally known as Rio’s. This great location undoubtedly ensures vast numbers through the turnstiles to dance around their handbags all night long.

In eagerness, I arrived at the club as the doors opened and was immediately greeted by the Estonian owner Roman Maroff. In distinctive eastern European style, Maroff sports a shock of long hair that would make Black Sabbath’s entourage blush with inadequacy. The layout of Club53 is split into two sections: the large dance floor and the chill-out zone equipped with comfortable settees and strategically placed lighting.

Maroff had pulled the proverbial rabbit from the hat with his inspired decision to book J. Montonn Jira as the special guest DJ. The baby-faced Montonn Jira has been wooing crowds from New York to Nottingham for the past five years, showcasing his immense skill and musical diversity, mixing Punjabi downtempo to minimal techno. I was fortunate to have a chat with Montonn Jira, and was interested to hear him recount tales of being the support DJ for Justin Timberlake on his US tour. When I asked him about Timberlake’s groupies, he just blushed and brushed off my attempt to take our conversation to the lowest common denominator.

By this time, the club was filling up with distinguished characters, such as Chairat Sukban, deputy mayor of Patong. There was also a batch of pretty girls present, alongside some of Phuket’s beautiful people, who you will not usually see on Soi Bangla.

The size of Club53 is quite surprising; I call it the “tardis effect”. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the sci-fi series Dr. Who, the tardis looks a small space from the outside, but when reaching the inside you realize it was an optical illusion. That’s the case with Club53, which is quite spacious and offers two neon-lit bar areas. I always like the effect of the neon-lit bars. When you’re blindingly drunk, the bar acts as a homing beacon pulling you toward it.

Shortly after midnight, Montonn Jira graced the sizable DJ booth with his presence and proceeded to bang out a thumping set that shook the building to its foundations. The laptop-wielding Montonn Jira is obviously a whiz kid, but I much prefer the good old days with hands-on vinyl mixing. I find the beat matching from a PC to be a little impersonal, as opposed to the cutting up and scratching days of old. The beauty of vinyl was you had more control, and at the same time you could skim a record and decapitate a few hecklers with one sweeping motion. But technology will always win the day, and it is much easier to carry a memory stick in your pocket instead of lumping two record bags over great distances.