A tale of two club nights

Insomniacs Ball at SeOne, London Bridge, 13th April 2006 and the Mighty Boosh aftershow party featuring Robots in Disguise at Plan B, Brixton, 19th April 2006


There are good clubnights and bad clubnights and downright disastrous ones. Well I guess you could say that these two experiences spanned all three variaties, and neither confirmed me in my club hating aversion, or opened my eyes to a whole new world of excitement and adventure which I will follow fervantly for the rest of my life.

To give you some background to this post, about ten years ago I composed the following poem;

I never thought much of clubbing
It's a pastime I've never enjoyed
All that pushing and groping and shoving
Just made me annoyed

Since then I may have changed quite a bit but never really gotten over my phobia (I think it began when I was molested outside the Square Club in Cardiff circa 1989). But this year I determined to overcome the past and give it another go.

Unfortunately for me the Insomniacs Ball was not the best place to start as the club environs (under the arches Eastenders style) were way beyond grimy/skanky whilst the overcrowding inside was of epic proportions (almost Hillsborough in its dimensions). GSG was quite scared at one point as myself and cidertramp made our way through the Art Brut inspired throng, only to be forced to abandon our attempts to get within a stone's throw of our indie artrock idols and stumble, CS Lewis like, into the adjoining chamber. There were good performance by a number of bands, including Art Brut, Dogs, Black Wire, and The Holloways, but the tempestuousness of the crowd was a bit too primeval for me (although it would have been ok at a festival in the great outdoors). The whole event seemed rather badly organised and the security seemed REALLY over the top (was it absolutely necessary to have five bouncers on the stage during The Holloways set- come on like, it's The Holloways not Oasis or Robbie Williams, for goodness sake).

In any case, I did like getting the first tube home- that was very serendipitous.

So anyway, the Mighty Boosh aftershow party at Plan B. V. different to the above, goes without saying. Indeed. Smaller, which was good. Shorter in duration (also good). More intimate. You're getting the picture. I really don't work well in large venues. I'm just not combative enough.

The Robots in Disguise were absolutely fabulous in a glam-rock, big boots, silver caped, besequinned way, and I enjoyed that muchly. Would like to see them again. The appearence of Noel Fielding of Mighty Boosh fame added to the revelry but it would have been just as good without his comedic presence as the girls, Sue Denim and Dee Plume, are of a rare and exotic genus and give great value, even inviting audience members on stage to join in the fun. My companions, cidertramp and vodkaslut, were ready to go by 2am as they had to work the next day, but I could gladly have gone on dancing for a few hours more. How ironic is that?