Go East with the Village people

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Video by Paul Seyb

The first few months of this year haven't been kind to London clubland. New Year saw three flagship clubs - The Key, The Cross and Canvas - close, as the land they stood on behind King's Cross station was sold.

Now this weekend, Turnmills, one of the capital's iconic clubs for two decades, plays host to thousands of dance music lovers for the very last time - it too has fallen victim to the new enemy of clubs, the developer.

Thank goodness, then, some people aren't shutting down clubs but opening them up. One such hero is Stuart Patterson, the DJ who runs The Lodge (a great club incongruously located in Harlesden) who's just launched East Village on the site of the old Medicine Bar in Shoreditch.

He's redesigned the whole building, turning the basement into a huge open dance floor with a brand-new EV Phoenix sound system.

The music booking policy involves a solid selection of new or previously successful nights from across the spectrum of house and disco. We venture along on a Saturday, a week after the club's official opening, for a party put on by Black Rabbit, who play all over London and are launching their monthly residency at East Village.

It's also the official launch party for the Snowbombing festival - lucky Black Rabbit-resident DJs Justin Robertson, Bones and Guy Williams are among a stellar lineup heading off to Austria on 31 March for a week of skiing, snowboarding and cuttingedge club sounds.

Nice and EC2: East Village

At £10 entry before midnight and £12 after, East Village's door prices are certainly set at club rather than bar level but, once inside, the swanky new interior doesn't disappoint.

The upstairs bar is large and intimately lit, with a long wooden bar on one side and plenty of leather sofas and chairs providing somewhere to chill out or get cosy if the mood takes you.

We arrive just before midnight, and the room is already bustling with people drinking and chatting. The crowd is slightly older and less frighteningly fashionable than at some nearby Shoreditch watering holes. It's a friendly atmosphere without the intimidation of being surrounded by people who look like they've walked off the pages of Vice magazine.

We hit the bar for pints (£3.10) a spirit and mixer and a glass of wine (both £3.50). Luckily the prices are more bar than club. We settle down in a booth on a mezzanine level to survey the scene.

The music upstairs, supplied by Late Night Audio's Danny Clarke, is the perfect

accompaniment to our first drink. Offering deep disco classics, it's loud enough to have us nodding along to some familiar tunes but not so intrusive that we're shouting in one another's ears.

All lit up: the buzzy bar inside the club

Come drink number two and we're ready to venture downstairs to the dance floor. With a bar on one side, spectacular disco lights on the other and the DJ booth at the far end, it's an impressive space that's already seeing serious action.

In front of us a girl is getting lifted up by a succession of partareners to touch the ceiling, Dirty Dancingstyle, while the dapper-looking Justin Robertson plays bass-heavy house to an enthusiastic crowd thronging round him.

After working up a sweat, we take a break upstairs where I chat to Joy, a make-up artist who's come here to hear Bones, an East London DJ hero since his days running a Sunday night club, Machine at On The Rocks. "It's a good night for girls here," she reckons, "because it's wall-to-wall with great-looking guys."

And indeed, from the looks of it later, she may well have bagged herself one. The girls a good-looking bunch too and are dressed up to party - there's plenty of chattingup and flirting going on.

Bones takes over for a set of dirty house music. Although the sound system isn't being tested to anywhere near the levels we imagine it can go, he has the place rocking till Guy Williams, until recently a Sunday night resident at Fabric, takes over for a final hour of more minimal sounds.

The crowd thins out by 3am but the arrival of staff from neighbouring Brazilian bar Favela Chic adds some fresh energy to the proceedings.

Stephan, a chef, tells us it's great there's a new late-night venue where he can have a drink and a dance at the end of his night.

We're still there when the lights come up at 4am, which is always a good sign.

Far from being just another bar, East Village is exactly the kind of intimate club that London needs more of - maybe the developer's wrecking ball has an upside after all.

East Village, 89 Great Eastern Street, EC2. Opening times and prices vary. Black Rabbit, tonight, The Westbury, 34 Kilburn High Road, NW6, 6pm - 3am, £5 before 9pm, £10 after.

 

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