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Pump it up - the Garage is back!
By Chris Beanland, London Lite 04.09.09
Hands up: good times at The Garage
Yes, it seems this is the year of revivals. We've welcomed back bands like Blur, fallen for Eighties fashion again and even EastEnders has got in on the act by bringing Danniella Westbrook back to Albert Square.
This trend also seems to be extending to London's nightlife, because The Garage — a venue which defined the north London scene in the mid-to-late Nineties — is back from the dead and breathing new life into this area of town.
The Garage opened back in 1993 — Oasis, Radiohead and the Arctic Monkeys all played here in its Britpop heyday — but then abruptly shut its doors in 2006. In the three years it lay dormant Highbury lost its edge as a nocturnal destination, too.
But the good times are back in N5 and so Lite went along on a Friday for the Dirty Boots (third Friday of every month) night of “bands plus beats” to see how many people were parking themselves in The Garage once again. After a quick drink at the Hen & Chickens theatre pub nearby we make our way there, strolling past The Library and the Buffalo Bar — two hip places that are also enticing party people back to the area.
We arrive at midnight. The Relentless Garage (to give it the official new monicker) is full to bursting with a great mixed crowd of post-pub locals wanting late drinks, hip young things and thirtysomething music aficionados.
I'd already been twice since the reopening — once for curtain-up in June and once to see a night hosted by cutting-edge record label Moshi Moshi. You might remember Moshi Moshi for launching the careers of Hot Chip, Metronomy and Friendly Fires, or perhaps for hosting great parties at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen.
But at Dirty Boots I take longer to appreciate just how much this previously scruffy venue has been improved since the first time I visited as a penniless student in 2000. Mama Group, which owns clubs including Heaven, has lavished £1m on it, the capacity has been doubled, there are more toilets, nicer décor, new stairs to the upstairs room and a new bar — called Minibar — at the front. It's an impressive transformation.
After exploring the new nooks and crannies we make for the main room and are treated by DJs The Fabulous Dixon Brothers to tracks by the likes of Jack Penate and Scroobius Pip, which get the audience dancing immediately. Janine, a friendly Highbury local I chat to, tells me: “The refurbishment looks cool and the sound is great, too. But the best bit is the crowd isn't too young!”
I repair to the Minibar for a Becks (£3.40). Sadly as it's a club night we can't sample the jukebox, but we'll be back again to give it a go. The one here is free and contains a whopping four million tracks, which means you won't ever have to listen to dadrock like All Right Now by Free again.
I chat to Garage manager Stuart Strong, who tells me about the other club nights they have on. There's International Hi-Fi — the weekly Saturday night indie disco; NME is hosting a new night called Radar; and there's Oh Inverted World, a night of live music and DJs. There are live gigs here of course, but club nights with DJs and the odd band on late doors (the night we visit, Leeds indie-dance dudes The Sunshine Underground hit the stage at 11.30pm and the place doesn't close until 4am) are what this place is really about.
We let our hair down in the more intimate upstairs room with some G&Ts (£3.70 each) and a dance to New Order, Kate Bush and other crowd-pleasing hits spun by DJs HotBam-WhiskeyFizzle. The entire place is now air-conditioned — so it'll never turn into a sweatbox. There's a good light show, and the sound system has clearly not been bought on the cheap — it's crisp and clear.
As we pop outside to grab some air we can see how much the club has changed Highbury for the better — there are people spilling out on to the pavement all around, laughing, smoking and just generally having fun. And there were very few places around the area you could do that at 2am all the years The Garage's doors were shut.
So let's hope the revival proves more successful than Oasis's recent return — they've already disbanded after only a few months back on the road, thanks to the rowing Gallagher brothers. The Garage deserves some longevity this time around.
