DJing at the Foundry in Old Street several years back, which finally closed today. I’ll miss it!
I also hear Fabric as of today is in receivership, Astoria, The End, Turnmills, Ghetto and Scala are also gone for various reasons over the last year or two.
It seems a lot of the small bars and mid-sized clubs are going to make way for the Olympics to be developed as overpriced hotels and CrossRail, and a few like Fabric to the current economic woes. I hope it’s worth the death of a lot of smaller venues that were the lifeblood of London’s musical scenes – because ironically all those visitors will arrive in 2012 looking for ‘cool London’ will otherwise find a nightlife that consists of depressing chain pubs and mega-O2 venues only – the very life they came to look for will have been cleared out to make way for Olympics PLC.
But of course that sort of local character is never preserved; with the stupid laws on small venues that came in a few years back they’ve succeeded to help the megapub chains and kill the smaller places which struggle against the Wembley and O2 arenas, rather than foster a local creative culture.
Still not all bad – I see the free raves are back. Will this be the summer of free rave parties again? Ones out of the range of sponsors and brewery control? I hope so.
EDIT: Fabric is still open, despite being sold. It’s sister club Matter though has closed…
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