Liquid Lab and Match

Escape from Samsara, @ The Fridge

Some Nonsense  @ Club 414

Friday 17th August 2001

It starts with a quiet drink after work, but then, doesn't it always? You come to the end of a busy working week, you feel you've achieved enough to have earned your crust and a small reward of a couple of beers with an old mate. You both insist that it's going to be a quiet night and that we'll be calling it quits at about 10pm. A quiet drink, to catch up on what each other has been up to. In theory it's a perfect set up for a Friday evening. In practice, it's asking for trouble. 

After 3 pints in some random Moorgate bar, Andy insists we're going to the Liquid Lab for hallucinogenic cocktails. I can already see that the plan is looking like being threatened so I voice my concerns to deaf ears. It is good though. Andy starts by ordering us two "Hallucinogenic Melons" and we receive large shot glasses layered top to bottom with Absinthe, Baileys and some green melon liquor. Andy strikes a match and puts it to the absinthe, which burns for a second or two, before he takes the lot through a straw. I follow suit after which he dalliances with the barmaid for literally seconds before returning with two huge plastic syringes of tequila and vodka jelly which we start to inject furiously. Undeterred by my constant reprimanding for ignoring the plan, Andy goes to the bar to purchase two Blood Clots. This shocking attempt at a drink is an actual medical blood sample plastic tube with a red cocktail that is so accurate in its consistency that it appears they have been raiding the fridges down the road in Great Ormond Street. Liquid Lab is highly recommended.

After that, across the road for some lounging in Match. Wall to wall with beautiful ladies, we loaf on the sofa and offer scorn at them for a couple of hours. I'm insisting on beer for the duration, but at one point the cheeky chap manages to get a double shot of strong Polish vodka down me. With the insides nicely on fire we dance around for probably no more than half an hour before one of us, and I can't remember who, utters the immortal Friday night line "Let's go to the Fridge!"

And so it is that we leave Match, travel down to Balham, I get changed, we scare my house mates and we leave, Brixton bound for the first time in over four months. Along the way Andy succeeds in loosing a credit card and most of his dignity, as we spend an hour unloading extraordinary levels of verbal abuse at anyone who'll listen, or just pass by.

So enter the Fridge. It is blindingly obvious from the offset that things are different here. For a start the entrance fee has now escalated to £14. I always considered the fridge expensive anyway, but this combined with £9.60 for two vodka Red Bulls (and she used one can of Red Bull between the two drinks I hasten to add) is taking the piss a bit too much. They've upgraded the decor - lots of new canvas backdrops mostly on the Samsara theme of strange Indian type painting, a bit of Oriental imagery thrown in for good measure. There are dozens of stalls selling glowsticks and the like. It's less of a nightclub, more a huge American shopping mall, designed in every capitalist way to fleece you of every penny.

And maybe that is the reason behind a) the fact that the club never reaches half full capacity and b) the people in here have changed dramatically. Huge numbers of kids, guys in suits, girls in very smart dresses and skirts. There are half a dozen cyber kids I guess, but even they look clean. It has changed, there is no doubt. Gone are the absolutely mad, of their tits clubbers of early last year. Gone are the friendly people you could chat to for hours - the few times I tried to strike a conversation, the recipients didn't want to know. Gone, apparently, are the drug dealers. Countless times I was asked if I could sell any pills. Having been to the Fridge so often you used to be aware of who was dealing - it was never hard to spot. But they're all gone now and gone with them is the slight edginess that is essential in a good night club. Whatever your stance on drugs, there's no question that the drug scene and the club scene are so closely related that one without the other doesn't seem to work.  The clubbers have moved on and so has the atmosphere and the tourists and kids have taken over.

One thing that can be said though, is that the music was good. Despite having dramatically sobered up, Andy and I still make a mockery of traditional club dancing my once again flailing arms and legs around with complete disregard for the safety of our ligaments or other's eyeballs.

At 2am though, we've had enough and promptly bugger off. For some strange reasoning that I can't quite figure out, we're now about to go into the Club 414, home turf for us after the series of Synthetic nights earlier this year. I'm insistent but Andy is skeptical and badgers the bouncer on how many people are inside. The bouncer is not telling. Of course when we crash through the door, the place is virtually empty. We head straight upstairs and sit on the floor berating the sad state of affairs in Brixton on a Friday night. It is interesting to see 414 so empty, particularly after the saga of Synthetic and the 414 not being happy with the numbers we were getting in. Trust me, it seems we were doing just fine.

Very shortly after we are sitting on the wall of the little park outside Mass and the Fridge wondering where it all went wrong. We're as sober as couple of judges, it's 3am and there is nothing to do. Nothing at all even remotely appealing at this point. London has failed us terribly. As we consider our fate we are constantly fleeced by passing tramps of all our "spare change". Eventually we walk back to Balham and get in at about 4.30am.

It was a cracking night, don't get me wrong. We had a great laugh. But it does pose some serious questions. Where have all the good clubbers gone? Is there a new venue yet undiscovered which has taken the crowd from the Fridge? Are we too old for this shit?  Is it actually us that have moved on? I don't have the answers. What I do know is that Brixton is an absolute dirty shit hole with nothing new to offer. From now on, I'm a Dorsia man through and through.