Things are not going very well in Europe for the club scene at the moment. Rising Covid-19 numbers across much of the continent – including in Germany which was previously seen as a good example of how to handle the virus – are seeing the type of massive case numbers not witnessed before.

And truth be told, governments aren’t quite sure how to handle it. The vaccine has brought the numbers being hospitalised down – but this can only go so far when cases are high. So European governments are reaching for as many tools from the box as they can. A few EU countries have closed nightclubs entirely again.

They’re not closed in Portugal at the moment, but negative tests are required at the door in order to gain entry – vaccinated or otherwise. I hear from friends in Portugal that nightclub attendance is already being hit – and this will have an impact on the rest of the night time economy.

Tests are in very short supply in Portugal as a result of this policy, which also applies to bars. Which poses a problem for Baixa Bar in the northwestern city of Porto. They have Derrick May due to appear next week. It’s a venue he would have turned his nose up at in years gone by, but such is life, eh?

A source in Detroit tells me he’s being paid $8,000 for the gig – something of a far cry from the $10,000 that manager Hagi Craig insists he earns. They’re going to have to sell an awful lot of cocktails to pay his fee – and with some Portuguese cities reporting big dips in visitor numbers, this might be a tough ask.

All will become clear over the weekend, no doubt. And one other thing remains unclear. A number of online reviews cite that this bar’s music policy is quite “mainstream” – the complete antithesis of what May supposedly believes in.

Techno played at 135bpm isn’t mainstream by anyone’s definition. You wouldn’t hear it on the radio on a Thursday afternoon, would you? So quite how he’s going to square this circle remains to be seen…