Is Glasgow a 24-Hour City? I Stayed Up All Night To Find Out

Maybe it’s unsurprising, then, that I’m sick and tired of England. You can only visit so many squats, poker dens, chicken shops, and chain casinos before you feel like you’ve seen it all. Me? I need a change of scenery. And I've been dreaming of Paris, New York, Tokyo, Madrid, Hong Kong…

So you can imagine how I felt when our editor booked us a couple of tickets to the biggest city in Scotland and ordered us to stay up until the wee hours of Sunday morning. So is Glasgow a 24-hour city? We stayed up all night to find out. 

It’s 2PM and I’m nursing a pint of Tennents outside MacKinnon's, a 200 year old pub in the city centre. It’s got an 8AM licence and the drinks are about three quid. My first impressions of Glasgow? Aye, class... We’ve got a lot of things to do, places to see, and tatties to eat, so we finish our drinks and wander up the road to our next stop. 

The Barras is a street market in Glasgow’s East End. It’s this city’s answer to Camden Lock, and probably the only place in the UK where you can buy a vintage football shirt, an old motorbike wheel and a Luftwaffe dagger – all from the same bloke. The sellers are a mix of mad dog Glaswegians and student trendies. The vibe is Gotham City as reimagined by Limmy. We browse the knock-off watches for an hour, then catch a bus across town in search of some fried food. 

Thirty minutes later, we’re standing outside University Cafe, a greasy spoon that opened in 1918. It’s got almost 30 years on the atomic bomb. And even a thermonuclear blast, I think, would fail to deter its loyal customers from queuing up to order battered haddock and chippy sausage suppers.

The late Anthony Bourdain even visited here in 2015 for his series, Parts Unknown, and the cafe has been trading on that fact ever since. I order a “Bourdain Special”, which is clearly aimed at the tourists and suckers (cuff me), because it costs twice as much as anything else on the menu. 

Still, there are only so many times in my life I’ll get the opportunity to eat a haggis slathered in curry sauce. It’s rich and delicious. I’ll regret it at 4AM. 

As well as sheep organs and the Loch Ness Monster, Scotland is known for its whisky. So we head to The Lismore, a gorgeous bar with low ceilings, stained glass windows, and one of the best Scotch selections in Glasgow. 

For the philistines among us, there are subtle differences between 'Scotch whisky', and ‘whiskey’ as it’s known in the United States and Ireland. For one, Scotch doesn’t have an ‘e’ in it. And it’s only distilled twice instead of three times. The barman pours me a glass. 

I’m getting teasing hints of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger, presumably (I don’t actually know). All spirits taste like mouthwash to me. I rinse, gargle and swallow, then order a pint of Tennents instead. 

It’s almost 10PM, the legal cut-off time for buying alcohol from shops in Scotland. This means one thing: We have minutes to find ourselves a bottle of Buckfast. 

For the benefit of our American readers, Buckie is essentially the British version of Four Loko: a super sweet, super caffeinated beverage with a 15 percent ABV. It’s as much a symbol of Scottishness as Groundskeeper Willie or the St. Andrew’s Cross. 

We make it to an off-licence just in the nick of time and buy a bottle of the so-called commotion lotion for just under a tenner. I take a swig. It tastes like calpol. Calpol that gets you pished and wired at the same time. The label says the bottle contains 281 mg of caffeine, which is roughly the same as nine cans of Coke. We spend the next couple of hours charging around the West End looking for a munchy box. 

Luckily for us, Macdonners, a kebab shop on St Vincent Street stays open until 1AM. And for a tenner you can get a 12” pizza box filled with a sort of ‘best hits’ of fried foodstuffs. Donner? Aye. Chips? Aye. Nuggets? Aye. Pakora? Aye. Onion rings? Fuck it, why not. 

You can probably only eat about 10 of these things before your arteries look like wet hotdogs. Ordinarily, I’d save something like this for a nuclear comedown or a three day hangover. But right now, it’s 1AM, I feel like dirt, and we haven’t even been clubbing yet. Fuck it. Let’s munchy box. 

Yushy and I do our best to make a dent in it, but underneath every layer of crispy batter is another layer of crispy batter. It’s like trying to drill the Mariana Trench. We take a time out and lie on the bus stop for 20 minutes. 

We’re getting to the business end of the night. Fuck eating any more fried food, the nightlife is the real reason we’re in Glasgow. The club is calling us. By now, everyone south of John O’Groats has heard of Subby. Sound travels. And Sub Club’s 500-capacity basement has one of the best sound systems in the UK. 

Unfortunately, the venue still has to close its doors at 4AM in accordance with those pesky Scottish licensing laws. Up the road on North Street, the council have granted The Berkeley Suite a special 5AM licence for the bank holiday weekend. Tonight’s event is Shoot Your Shot, a queer party that’s celebrating its ninth birthday. Count me in. 

We queue up outside what looks like an old pawn shop, and make it onto the dancefloor just before 2AM. We spend a couple of hours dancing off the munchy box to the sounds of a Midland DJ set, then head for the smokers to try and find an afterparty. 

In 2018, i-D did a documentary on Glasgow’s thriving after-hours scene. Since then, by way of a global pandemic and a petty tabloid investigation from The Sunday Mail, the Scottish polis have cracked down on illegal raves. 

But where there's a will to party, there’s a way to party. And unlike the polis, I’ve got one of the UK’s most distinguished rave photographers by my side. Within 15 minutes of being in the smoking area, Yushy has got the name and address of a squat party in the North East of town. 

A short cab ride later and we’re standing outside a bus stop in the Maryhill suburbs, listening for the sounds of crunching snares on the wind. Frankie Knuckles, Keith Flint and all the other rave gods must be smiling on us, because one of the promoters spots us wandering outside the warehouse and smuggles us inside just before 4:30AM. 

To say it’s a DIY party would be like saying that eating plutonium is a health and safety risk. It’s about 50 people fucked off their heads in a falling-down warehouse. This is Glasgow. This is free party heritage. We kick around the squat, chatting to the punters, who are warm and friendly and higher than the Scottish Highlands. 

By the time I come to my senses it’s 6:30AM and I’m playing the bongos in what looks like a bedroom recording studio on the second floor of the warehouse. Who are these people!? What are we doing here!? And when did it get so light!? 

Yushy and I call an Uber to take us back to our hotel in the city centre. But not before making one last stop: Glasgow Necropolis is a 37 acre Victorian cemetery that overlooks the city. It’s the most peaceful place in town. And it’s open from 7AM. 

We climb to the top of the hill and watch the fog hanging over the tenements and the Gothic cathedrals (there’s no sky in Glasgow, really). Right now, there are 50,000 dead people beneath my feet. Most of them probably look better than I do. 

So is Glasgow a 24-hour city? It’s the wee hours of Sunday morning and about the only things open right now are an illegal squat rave and a Victorian graveyard. You do the maths. That being said… I did have a belting time here. Better maybe, than any night out I’ve had so far in England. New York? Paris? Tokyo? Get tae fuck. If you’re looking for a change of scenery, get yourself to Glasgow.