House Is A Feeling

There is nothing like starting the day with that shudder that says “where am I?” as you emerge from bizarre dreams about continuing the previous night’s party in a small French village you may or may not have visited as a child.

Although the specifics may be different (obviously nobody really had the above dream, certainly not the writer of this site) I suspect there are plenty of people struggling through work today or probably still out after a raucous opening for the new T-Bar, a really big night that gave real reason to be excited about the place in the months to come.

I got in at about 10, after asking a drunken businessman where Dukes was (”you’re taking me back now…”)  The queue took about 15 minutes or so and even at that stage the downstairs room was busy (and the toilets blocked!) The main room is a big hall basically. It’s a fairly natural club space apart from a big pillar in the middle of the floor, though that’s not a major problem. The sound is good too.

When we got in Michael Mayer was playing a warmup set and I thought he was fantastic. It’s been ages since I’ve seen that shit eating grin of his behind the decks but the pop inflected electronic deep house he played really heated the place up.

Even early on there was a real vibe in the air, with people cheering (unheard of in London!) The main room has a disco ball which gives a real intimacy to the venue and is a nice change from the usual retina assault.

I’ve always thought of Mayer as a sort of Laurent Garnier for the post-internet techno world, and last night it felt that way again, as he veered between electronic disco, deep house, and techno. Most of what he played had that European pop or rock or italo slant to it, with a few really classic US house tracks. It was a brilliant two hours or so of music, I guess it’s still true that a warmup set is a good litmus test of a DJ’s skill.

Jamie Jones came on at what must have been about midnight, and I thought he was mostly very good, having never seen him before. He obviously has a thing for really heavy duty hardware drums and basslines, and it went down really well. I certainly enjoyed him more than Lazarus doing an impression of Ebeneezer Goode on the stage in Fabric last weekend.

I felt towards the end of his set the style wore thin a little (and there was a small but palpable amount of “serious dance person disdain” when he played some slightly weird remix of MGMT) but I would definitely watch him play again, he had the place hopping.

Away from the dancefloor there’s an upstairs area with its own bar and a half decent soundsystem piping the music from downstairs through, which I guess means you can still have a conversation (remember them?!?)  I always like the way these parts of a venue get looser and more unhinged on a really good night, and this was the way it went, people sprawled about and chairs fucked everywhere and a few sleepers. You could spend the night in the bar area and have a pretty good time I reckon.

The same isn’t true of the toilets unfortunately, you couldn’t spend the night in them and have a good time (well maybe you could if you like it dirty. Look I don’t want to know. Jesus Christ.) There was about an inch of piss cleaning your shoes in there from an early stage and the cubicles were all blocked up. Maybe people vary but personally I reckon you just get on with it and laugh at the banter that goes on eg “I could do with a boat” etc while mentally grading it at 5 or perhaps 6 out of 10.

So after some general fucking around and boozing upstairs I caught Mayer playing the closing two hours till 4am. Memory is a bit hazy by now (I am fairly sure he produced a guitar at one point, and my grandma was there, but we were in Hawaii and I was back in my old school) but his set had a lot of feel good Balearic type stuff in it alongside house and techno.

Again there was a really big vibe around, more than you get in London usually, with people smiling and cheering. It was a party not a club night, which over here is rare enough, at least in my limited experience. By the end people were doing the whole “one more tune” beg, and Mayer dropped some ridiculous piano laden old school track that seemed to have about 7 different verses in it.

Then the lights came on and I guess people stumbled home in various states of confusion. In the actually quite warm light of day I’ve got to say that was one of the best nights out I’ve had in London, just simple good fun, with nothing getting in the way. Let’s hope the new T stays that way. There’s some good stuff coming up.

PS: HIAF tip of the day (in the style of a hardened TV police officer.) “Never eat a salt beef beigel you can’t see.”