Photo and story by Tom Medwell, Art Director, le cool London
The rise and fall of Shoreditch as London’s prime clubbing location has been a well-observed process; a scene built on a home-made attitude to fun, adored by the fashionable crowd, it eventually shouted so loudly about its own fabulousness that the hordes descended. Old Street on the weekend is not a great place to be. Abashed but not broken, the club kids migrated North and East, and now much of the good stuff is to be found in Mile End and Dalston. The venues of Shoreditch remain however, and when they’re not entertaining the masses with Music To Drink Stella To and special offers on shots of colourful pre-vom, more than a few are feeling the pinch, with empty bars and quiet nights evident.
Catch is one of the oldest standards of Shoreditch geography, and one of the few still trying to cater to the original Shoreditch set. Although I’ve been thrown out of there a few times on weekends when people were causing me trouble, their mon-fri line-up generally offers a few treats, and more often than not, these nights are the ones the cool, hip and trend-setting folks of the neighbourhood flock to. A Rebours is one such night, held upstairs on a Thursday once a month; loosely based around a different theme each month, by midnight it is inevitably packed with an indeterminately young crowd, and while black is the prominent colour, the clubnight is a few million miles from the goth and metal nights of Camden. It sits on that curious cultural boundary between trying to be fashionable and being what will be fashionable next. It is like being in a time bubble, the boundaries between retro and now have blurred, nobody takes it too seriously but it still seems important – right now anyway, until the next thing comes along.
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john_power
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'when people were causing me trouble' - must remember that
- 2 years ago
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john_power
