When Drake turns up at your local club

Niket Bhatti doesn’t usually go to Club Republic in Leicester on a Thursday night but this week he made an exception.

There’d been rumours that Drake was going to turn up at the small venue and Niket is a massive fan.

Many didn’t believe the three-time Grammy award winner would actually show at the 2,000 capacity club.

He’d made a similar promise in 2017, and not turned up.

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Niket took a gamble though and it paid off. He arrived at 23:00 GMT, shortly after Drake had posted a picture of the flyer for the aftershow in Leicester.

He then had to wait over two hours before Drake came on stage at 01:20 GMT.

The Canadian rapper had been playing to a crowd of 16,000 earlier in the night in Birmingham as part of his Assassination Vacation tour.

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“The build-up was insane,” Niket explains. “It’s like they kept prolonging it. I was having doubts as well. Some people were like he’s not going to turn up.”

Student Diya Rajesh was also sceptical about whether he would actually perform at such a small venue.

She says: “Someone on the stage said Drake is in the building and then everyone was really excited and then he came out.”

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“He was just like ‘Hi Leicester’ and then he performed a couple of songs.”

Drake played a number of his biggest hits, including God’s Plan, and Nonstop.

“It was really good,” says Diya. “It was way better than I even expected because it was just the fact that we really didn’t think he would turn up and he actually did.

“And also because it was quite a small venue we were really close to him.”

For Niket, it was a night that he will never forget: “For a small city like Leicester it was just amazing. No-one was expecting that.”

But spare a thought for those who decided not to go to the club because they didn’t believe Drake would turn up…

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Nahhh I’m actually vexed!! For years this kid has been cancelling shows in Leicester!! I move to London and Drake actually shows up?? Shoulda copped tickets ?

— Я (@raksterrr) March 29, 2019

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