Night of the Glowing Undead
Mar. 23rd, 2008 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dotintheskyI think it's safe to say that my first trip to Slimelight was a success. What I thought would be a club filled with attitude and unfriendliness turned out to be a darker, campier version of Popstarz when it was housed at The Scala. I danced to The Cure's "Killing an Arab", Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" (EBM version) and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can't name; had a death metallist offer me his lap; bumped into various LJ people (even the kind I only know through icons); was offered drugs (which I declined - but won't next time); had boy-on-boy action with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dj_alexander in the toilets (with an audience); drank a lot of Red Bull and Vodka served by the very friendly bar staff; was wished a good night by the coatcheck people (who made a point to look for my lost scarf); and didn't take too long to reach home after a solitary wait in the freezing cold and two nightbuses.
I'd been craving a club night in ages, and things got off to a nice start atsor_eye_ah and fross's place, where we drank vodka and cokes, ate nachos and listened to Equinox (a Front Line Assembly side project which I'd never heard of before, and which was quite good). Once the girl was booted, corseted and ready to go, we took the No.43 bus and were deposited a few metres away from the club's entrance (which is just behind Angel tube station.) sor_eye_ah was my side-kick for the night - passing on the job to others the few times she needed to venture into the foul-smelling toilets or grab a drink.
We were one of the first people to arrive (10.30pm) so she gave me a tour of the place. Immediately after the entrance is a little bar and a door to a room that plays trad goth all night (it's actually quite a boring room, with most of the songs being too slow and lacklustre to bring out the people standing in the sidelines to the dancefloor.) I heard my first recognizable song of the night in this room, The Creatures' "Gecko". From there,sor_eye_ah walked me through the cinema (a freezing corridor with chairs, at the bottom of a staircase, facing a screen playing Bugs Bunny), up to the middle floor (where most people spend the whole night, and which plays EBM to a sea of weaving glow sticks.) On the third floor is where they supposedly play more industrial noise and experimental stuff but I actually didn't hear anything of the sort the few times I wandered through - it was pretty much the same type of music as the second floor, with some abstract variations. It was in the girls' third floor toilet that we spotted the night's first casualty - a pair of legs and boots stretched out on the floor, security surrounding him/her.
Back on the second floor, I foundbottled_cat, kixie, denalyia, zenithed and Tom-who-turned-out-to-not-be-brasilian, sitting on one of the leather couches facing the bar. You know those American high school films where the nerd shows up to a houseparty thrown by the cool kids? It felt a bit like that when they recognised me underneath my neon dreadlocks, goggles, moon boots and PVC terminator suit. It was really good to see them and for the rest of the night we bumped into each other, discussed the club and its people, gossiped about LJ and so forth. Surreal moment of the night goes to the individual who showed up as a Star Wars stormtrooper, clearly confusing Slimelight with Torture Garden.
I forgot what it was like to be in a club filled with stick thin, pill-popping kids. It was a nice nostalgic trip, on a carriage lane I'm not used to taking. My biggest surprise of the night, however, was that you can bring your own drinks to Slimelight?!? I've never heard of such a thing, especially since the venue also sells alcohol. There was a high rate of good looking girls and not-so good looking boys (but all the girls are mentalists so it's not worth it, according todj_alexander). I lost track of the amount of girls with their asses hanging out, which certainly shatters my pre-conception of goth girls only wearing big frilly dresses. Some of the people dancing were so thin, they practically had no energy to turn their bodies. I thought about opening a hamburger stand outside, for the early morning survivors, then changed my mind when I remembered how cruel London's winter nights can be. Once in a while, I spotted older folk like myself in the crowd, enjoying some dancing, watching this younger scene they no longer belong to, some lurking in the shadows like sharks, waiting to pounce on the first nubile 18-year-old that wandered by. My heart goes out to the ones, like myself, who still want to go out once in a while for the sheer joy of dancing, drinking and judging other people's outfits - no strings attached. It's the same in every club, every city, actually. Cursed be the day I stop enjoying night life.
dj_alexander in the toilets (with an audience); drank a lot of Red Bull and Vodka served by the very friendly bar staff; was wished a good night by the coatcheck people (who made a point to look for my lost scarf); and didn't take too long to reach home after a solitary wait in the freezing cold and two nightbuses.I'd been craving a club night in ages, and things got off to a nice start at
sor_eye_ah and fross's place, where we drank vodka and cokes, ate nachos and listened to Equinox (a Front Line Assembly side project which I'd never heard of before, and which was quite good). Once the girl was booted, corseted and ready to go, we took the No.43 bus and were deposited a few metres away from the club's entrance (which is just behind Angel tube station.) sor_eye_ah was my side-kick for the night - passing on the job to others the few times she needed to venture into the foul-smelling toilets or grab a drink. We were one of the first people to arrive (10.30pm) so she gave me a tour of the place. Immediately after the entrance is a little bar and a door to a room that plays trad goth all night (it's actually quite a boring room, with most of the songs being too slow and lacklustre to bring out the people standing in the sidelines to the dancefloor.) I heard my first recognizable song of the night in this room, The Creatures' "Gecko". From there,
sor_eye_ah walked me through the cinema (a freezing corridor with chairs, at the bottom of a staircase, facing a screen playing Bugs Bunny), up to the middle floor (where most people spend the whole night, and which plays EBM to a sea of weaving glow sticks.) On the third floor is where they supposedly play more industrial noise and experimental stuff but I actually didn't hear anything of the sort the few times I wandered through - it was pretty much the same type of music as the second floor, with some abstract variations. It was in the girls' third floor toilet that we spotted the night's first casualty - a pair of legs and boots stretched out on the floor, security surrounding him/her.Back on the second floor, I found
bottled_cat, kixie, denalyia, zenithed and Tom-who-turned-out-to-not-be-brasilian, sitting on one of the leather couches facing the bar. You know those American high school films where the nerd shows up to a houseparty thrown by the cool kids? It felt a bit like that when they recognised me underneath my neon dreadlocks, goggles, moon boots and PVC terminator suit. It was really good to see them and for the rest of the night we bumped into each other, discussed the club and its people, gossiped about LJ and so forth. Surreal moment of the night goes to the individual who showed up as a Star Wars stormtrooper, clearly confusing Slimelight with Torture Garden.I forgot what it was like to be in a club filled with stick thin, pill-popping kids. It was a nice nostalgic trip, on a carriage lane I'm not used to taking. My biggest surprise of the night, however, was that you can bring your own drinks to Slimelight?!? I've never heard of such a thing, especially since the venue also sells alcohol. There was a high rate of good looking girls and not-so good looking boys (but all the girls are mentalists so it's not worth it, according to
dj_alexander). I lost track of the amount of girls with their asses hanging out, which certainly shatters my pre-conception of goth girls only wearing big frilly dresses. Some of the people dancing were so thin, they practically had no energy to turn their bodies. I thought about opening a hamburger stand outside, for the early morning survivors, then changed my mind when I remembered how cruel London's winter nights can be. Once in a while, I spotted older folk like myself in the crowd, enjoying some dancing, watching this younger scene they no longer belong to, some lurking in the shadows like sharks, waiting to pounce on the first nubile 18-year-old that wandered by. My heart goes out to the ones, like myself, who still want to go out once in a while for the sheer joy of dancing, drinking and judging other people's outfits - no strings attached. It's the same in every club, every city, actually. Cursed be the day I stop enjoying night life.
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no subject
on 2008-03-23 03:17 pm (UTC)Really wish I could have gone. Sodding illness!!!
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on 2008-03-23 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-24 09:42 am (UTC)Also, did you manage to stay until 7.30? I think next time I need to work a bit harder and last the run.
no subject
on 2008-03-24 10:19 am (UTC)I normally stay until 7.30. This time we stayed until 6.30 -- at that point Verity & co had to leave (unusually early for them), after which I ran into Tom who needed to rapidly pass out so we hit the road. If you're not on drugs or coffee the trick is just to stay with a hardcore group who are gonna stick it out. Which in my case is usually the cybers on the top floor :D
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on 2008-03-24 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-24 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
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on 2008-03-25 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-25 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-25 12:11 pm (UTC)And I too am scandalised and intrigued by the ‘boy on boy’ action!
no subject
on 2008-03-25 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-25 01:03 pm (UTC)But I guessed it would be something non-scandalous like that…
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on 2008-03-25 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-25 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-25 01:20 pm (UTC)You've got a dobbelganger in the neighbourhood!
no subject
on 2008-03-25 01:33 pm (UTC)That’s a very scary prospect – for all concerned!
Can't wait to have my say
on 2011-04-13 10:11 pm (UTC)