LondonNet Club Night Review

How Does It Feel To Be Loved

9PM- 2 AM, 5UKP, 3UKP members (free membership)
First Friday of the month @ Canterbury Arms
8 Canterbury Crescent, SW9 7QD
Tube: Brixton
Third Friday of the month @ Buffalo Bar
259 Upper Street, N1
Tube: Highbury and Islington

It Feels Great To Be Loved
A tribute to Peel, and finally, a club night for the rest of us...

SOMETIMES it really is just about the music. It is certainly the case with "How Does it feel to be loved?", anyway. Truly a welcoming, everyman type of club night, HDIFTBL combines an incredibly unpretentious, unobtrusive venue far from the more discriminating West End (a pub in Brixton with carpet, flowered wallpaper and framed football kits as its main décor) with people who can't dance and aren't willing to let that stop them, and the night is all the better for it.

The crowd varies from fortysomethings trying to re-live early 80's glory, hipsters not quite hip enough for West End clubs, and those who would fit in with that crowd, but knew this night would be more fun anyway. By the way, the beer is suitably cheap (some pints even available for under 2 quid).

The music is as eclectic as the people, focusing on everything from the Smiths (yes, even their gloomier songs) to the Beach Boys to old Motown tunes. Although, the DJs aren't as important as the music, on November 5th, giants provided the music. Long-time Blur, Smiths, and Morrissey producer Stephen Street was the guest DJ (each night has a guest DJ), and as a tribute to John Peel, his entire Festive 50 from 1986 was played. Street played Motown songs that forced people to dance, lest they seem soulless, and threw in a bit of soul, reggae, old school punk and Morrissey (a bit of favouritism) to keep the night's variety intact.

Perhaps not coincidentally Peel's Festive 50 featured 7 Smiths songs (six in the Top 12), but also showed the scope of Peel's influence with selections from a who's who of the era from Nick Cave to Billy Bragg to the Fall to Jesus and Mary Chain and the Cocteau Twins. Archived selections of Peel's voice from the Festive Fifty broadcast were played to mammoth roars from the audience.

It seemed a fitting tribute at a club that Peel's everyman character would have approved of. Seeing an entire crowd of people singing along to Smiths songs in unison while throwing themselves about the dance floor may seem strange, but it's only natural for a night as genuine as this.

(Steve Marshall)

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