Those pair of jeans were still dirty with dust, beer, sweat and everything you can soil your jeans with during the Camden Crawl. They had spent the last few weeks shoved at the bottom of the laundry bag, forsaken and forgotten. So when it came to prepare myself for the Stag and Dagger, that is the newly born Shoreditch answer to the Crawl, I proudly donned them and swaggered out of my den.
Now try to remember all your favourite venues in Shoreditch, et voila, they are all part of the Stag and Dagger! Vibe Bar, 93 Feet East, Electricity Showrooms, Cargo, Favela Chic to mention a few. The problem with this kind of gig is, you want to see everything, and you actually could, if you could magically jump the queues. Thank god it was on a Thursday, although next year I’m pretty sure they’ll move it to the weekend.
After retrieving my wristband, I plunge into the nearest venue, the Old Blue Last pub, and there I am illuminated by the singer of a pseudopunk band whose name is probably Chob. While the other members of the band execute their dirty job with enough stamina, this long haired girly girl screams and pulls faces like an epileptic updated version of Anne Meek, the immortal vocalist of prog Dutch band Catapilla. Amazing. The music in itself is nothing to die for, some honest and quite solid punk, but you need to have balls of steel to go on a stage and stretch every corner of your face like there’s no tomorrow for anti-wrinkle creams.
Then in the same venue come Shitting Fists and that name makes it just unthinkable to swap them with another band. They are good, yessir, energetic and vital rockers. All boys. The acoustic of the Old Blue Last is not exactly the best you can have and I do hope to see these guys again on a better and bigger stage. One pint later: Times New Viking are refined and intelligent, and they know that. They all wear the peace symbol on their shirts. The girl sings and plays keyboards. The guy sings and plays guitar. The others play other instruments. I’m drunk and I can’t really pay attention to the music, sorry. A trip to the toilet becomes a trip into the magic world of psychotropic drugs, which makes it even harder to pay attention to the music, sorry.
Then I remember catching glimpses of Example at the Macbeth, Booji Boy High at Hoxton Bar And Grill, finally some DJs at the Electricity Showrooms, but I’m not inside the showroom, the showroom is inside of me. You know what I mean. I’m absolutely loving everything I hear, but this means nothing, so you guys just come down to the next Stag and Dagger next year and see for yourselves, ciao.