When Rory Hamilton steps into the booth for the 30th birthday celebrations of Belfast clubbing institution Shine on Boxing Night, it won’t just be his previous Shine appearances that come to mind – but his entire life and career in dance music.
Born and brought up in Belfast, the DJ and producer known as Hammer is mostly associated with Glasgow – he moved there for art school at 19 and ended up staying for 10 years. After an extended spell in London, he’s now back in the Scottish city where he lives with his partner and young daughter.
But Belfast – and more specifically, Shine – is where it all began for Hamilton and his schoolmates Andrew Ferguson and Matt McBriar, who are of course better known as Bicep.
From the age of 16, the three pals made a weekly pilgrimage to Shine at the students’ union of Queen’s University Belfast. These days, Shine is a major promotions company that runs festivals like Emerge and Belsonic, as well as putting on gigs and events right across the musical spectrum.
But from the mid-90s until the mid-2000s, it was a weekly three-room club that used to attract the best house and techno DJs on the circuit. Carl Cox, Green Velvet, Laurent Garnier, Dave Clarke and local hero David Holmes were all regulars, while Phil Kieran was a resident for many years.
The original venue – since sadly demolished and replaced – was underground both musically and literally; gritty and raw but a hedonist’s paradise. It’s often been said that the early acid house scene (and punk before it) played a major role in bringing together the two traditional sides of what was then (and still is to an extent) a religiously and culturally divided city.
At Shine too, baggage – if you had any – was left at the door, and it was all about the music and the ecstatic release of a good party. It’s fair to say it left a big impression on a teenage Hamilton.
“My friend’s older brother was a big Shine head, so then I was like, ‘Okay, let’s go’ – fake ID and all!” he laughs. “Hearing a big sound system for the first time – I would love to experience that again. And seeing all those people and seeing a lot of love in a room.
“I grew up going to bars and you’d see fights, but then you go to this club and everybody’s just loving each other. It’s actually beautiful to think back to that because it was amazing. You take it for granted as you get older. Walking down those steps – you’d go right to Mandela [Hall], left to Bunatee… It was like a scene out of a movie.
“I was underage but I went every week, and it just turned me into a music lover. And friendships – I wasn’t really friends with anyone at school as such, all my friends were older people who I’d been meeting at Shine. That was my Belfast life. It shaped who I am.”
![Heading to Shine: "Walking down those steps - you'd go right to Mandela [Hall], left to Bunatee... It was like a scene out of a movie."](https://i0.wp.com/plus.inflyteapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Shine-stairs.jpg?fit=2048%2C1369&ssl=1)
Imagine the thrill, then, when Hamilton was asked to return to his hometown for the 30th anniversary, joining Shine legends Slam, David Holmes, Swoose and more on the bill.
It’s not his first time back to play Shine as a professional, but having lived away from Belfast for so long, it will be a very special occasion. And while the venue has changed to the Limelight just down the road – Hamilton will be playing in the 300-capacity second room – it will bring back memories of the old Bunatee Bar, the original room two at Shine. A classic underground rave cave, it was famous for having a ceiling so low that it would regularly have holes punched into it by exuberant dancers.
“It means the absolute world to me to play, I’m buzzing,” he says. “I’m playing the ‘Bunatee’ Shine Classics room, so I have a bit of work to do there, digging out some classics.
“I played the Bunatee one or two times and I remember being extremely nervous, but it was amazing. You could do anything you wanted to in that room. The wee steps and all the nooks and crannies – it was probably the best room in the UK at that time, for me anyway.”
Hamilton admits that memories of his formative clubbing days are a little hazy, but as a confirmed techno head, a few nights and names stand out:
“I always remember Speedy J playing. I loved Speedy J, I had loads of his vinyls, and it was just so banging. I remember Phil Kieran playing a lot, and [Shine founder] Alan Simms – I loved when he played in the Bunatee. He’d play a really proggy, cool set.
“And then you’d get exposed [to other stuff]. I remember Andrew Weatherall playing with Two Lone Swordsmen; Dave Clarke was always a highlight, in my head, he’s basically from Belfast. And D.A.V.E. the Drummer, all these people that Belfast people just love.
“I think what it says about Belfast is that we just absolutely love music and it’s full of absolute headers!” he adds, using Belfast slang for party animals. “It’s very similar to Glasgow.”
While Shine no longer operates as a weekly event, there are parallels to be drawn with a club that Hamilton knows intimately – Glasgow’s Sub Club. “The Subbie is nearly 40,” he says. “Its date is 1987, which is the same year I was born. That’s pretty wild!”
He was a regular at the Sunday night Optimo parties from his earliest student days and went on to become good friends with Optimo’s Jonnie Wilkes – a fellow Belfast man – and Keith McIvor, aka JD Twitch, whose recent passing is an incalculable loss.
“Keith put out my first ever solo vinyl, and that was just… That’s everything to me,” he says. “I owe him a lot. And he was a friend, so it was brutally devastating. But the outpouring was insane, from all over the world and Belfast especially.
“I just feel very lucky. The idea of having a solo vinyl when I was in my early 20s was pretty mind-blowing. I’ve got it framed on my wall.”
For Hamilton, life back in Glasgow is busy. He admits that he doesn’t get to go out clubbing and partying as much as he used to – fatherhood will have that effect – but he’s always busy in the studio, DJing, and in his involvement with SWG3, a hub for the city’s arts community.
“We’re trying to create a community studio,” Hamilton says. “There are two parts to it – to get the professional music community talking to each other a bit more and using the space, but also for kids from different social backgrounds in Glasgow to have access to really good equipment, and hopefully to a career.
“Glasgow has got a lot of poverty – I think one in four kids is living in poverty, and you’re six times more likely to get a music career if you’re from a privileged background – maybe a bit more than that. So think about that – social class is the biggest barrier to music.”
As for his own music, his latest collab with old friends Bicep features on their new CHROMA vinyl release, a new single with Demi Riquismo has just come out, and there are releases slated for his own label, Remmah, as well as plenty more Hammer material.
One recent release saw the versatile producer make his debut on Tronik Youth’s label Nein with a pair of dancefloor weapons that draw on his love of dark disco, acid techno, Italo and EBM, as well as an industrial-flavoured remix from the label boss himself.
“I was talking to Neil from Tronik Youth a lot and he said, ‘Just send me some music’,” he explains. “I just sent him a load of stuff and he loved it all, so we picked those two tracks. I was just buzzing that he put it out.”
It’s all a far cry from the fresh-faced 16-year-old that first ventured downstairs at Shine all those years ago, not realising his life’s path was about to be laid in front of him. On Boxing Night at the Limelight, he will have a chance to relive those glory days.