Clubs

Frog
Emma flies the flag for hip hop and drum’n’bass in a flat dominated by indie kids. Rarely venturing outside Shoreditch, tonight she’s taken to the West End for a night of records with guitars in them.

11.35pm Emma We arrive at the Mean Fiddler only to be greeted by a queue round the block. Luckily, we’re on the guestlist! A harassed-looking woman asks me whose list I’m on. ‘I don’t know. Time Out’s?’ I ask. We are heavily searched and then let in through a secret side door…

11.46pm The cloakroom costs £1.50! One. Pound. Fifty. That’s £3 for my coat and my bag! I could have bought a drink for that. Or not, since a can of Red Stripe sets me back a whopping £3.20. Feature continues

11.58pm Rather than the mindless ‘Lady Flava’ (or whatever) toilet graffiti that you get at hip hop nights, there seems to be more of a political leaning here. ‘You can paint over us, but you can’t stop us,’ says one, while ‘We hate Bush’ is a popular line. I’m impressed.

12.27am The girls here have made a real effort – little dresses and lots of lipstick give the place an air of glamour that leaves me feeling a little underdressed. The same can’t be said for the boys, though. One chap minces past sporting a reindeer-and-snowflake woolly jumper. Presumably this is supposed to be ironic. Unfortunately it’s so hot in here that he is sweating profusely. And he looks like a tosser.

12.57am Polysics come on. The crowd all throw themselves at each other with little regard for their neighbours. I give one young man who lands on my big toe a filthy look. He starts to return it but is interrupted when his neighbour elbows him hard in the ribs. My flatmate’s face takes on a look of delight as the lead singer launches himself into the crowd.

1.43am What’s this? The band have finished, and after a couple of Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys tunes, the DJ drops a D&B remix of a Prodigy track and the crowd goes wild… perhaps this lot are more open-minded than I thought.

1.52am Yes! D&B! Brilliant! Let’s all have a rave!

1.55am I feel a tap on my shoulder. My flatmates are all stood around me. ‘This is crap. Can we go now?’
Frog, Saturdays at Mean Fiddler

Fabric Live
Michelle stands by her claim that ‘indie is where it’s at and hip hop’s nowhere near it’. Can Fabric Live can prove her wrong?

11.23pm Michelle After a bit of delay on the tube, we arrive outside Fabric bursting for the loo. There’s no queue.

11.42pm Some moron spends 15 minutes arguing with the girl at the ticket window. A queue builds up behind him – Emma has gone a faint yellow colour and is hopping from one foot to the other, muttering about toilets and said moron’s head.

12.15am After a frankly disturbing unisex toilet experience, we head to the bar. Drink prices meet expectations, somewhere around £3.50 for a vodka lemon and lime. The drinks come in a real glass: a nice change from the usual plastic cups. .

1.12am Drum ’n’ bass dancing is a bit like moshing – only you can’t escape. If you’re at an indie club, there are people who don’t want to mosh, so you can stand back. Here, even in the deepest corners of the room, people are engaged in a sort of personal mosh, hopping from one foot to the other and jerking their bodies in odd directions. This results in several bruises to my torso and one particularly nasty elbow wound to my left hip.

1.53am We are dragged into the main room to hear Faith SFX, a surly-looking beatboxer. You have to admire someone who can make drum noises in his mouth and sing. He does a particularly good rendition of ‘Your Body’ by Tom Novy.

2.12am A skinny girl in a barely there dress gets on stage and shimmiesup to each member of the band (or crew, or whatever the kids call them these days), trying to get a response. Within seconds a bouncer is on stage to escort her off. The rapper turns to her and asks if she will show us her breasts. She looks sheepish and shakes her head. ‘No? Get off, then!’

2.35am The crowd is getting increasingly rowdy, and we have run out of money for drinks. Time to head off. Fabric is surprisingly not completely unpleasant – not somewhere I would choose to go, but it’s not the worst night out I’ve ever had.

Fridays at Fabric