Friday Fun

These days, I don't usually venture out on a Friday night, preferring to recharge my batteries after the working week, ready for Duckie on Saturday. This week though was an exception, as I headed to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern for the opening night of Yo! Suzi, a new alternative-esque night hosted by Justin Bond (aka Kiki from Kiki And Herb) with DJs Lush & Johnny Slut.

Now previous attempts at starting Friday-nighters at the Vauxhall have generally bombed spectacularly, but I hope this one doesn't go the same way for I was pleasantly surprised. The music was good, a bit more stuff for "the kids" than you'd expect on a Duckie night, but then the crowd were that bit younger. And there was enough of the older stuff to keep an old croc like me happy too. They'd certainly gone to town with the decor; lots of glistening silver streamers all over the place, a giant square umbrella (with a crow or raven on top) at the entrance and a couple of slightly disturbing armless mannequins on each side of the stage, both sporting bright blue wigs and eye-masks. The only tedious bit was the band, I think they were called Ape Drape Escape. Anyway, they hailed from Sheffield and would probably be quite entertaining if you're 18 and haven't been out much, but for me it was just a case of feeling like I'd seen it all before, many, many times in fact. Oh, and there was a very odd man who spent much of the night crouching on the floor, occasionally trying to sniff people's feet. He reminded me a bit of a giant turtle from the Galapagos Islands. Not sure what happened later on, at one point security started taking an interest in his erm....activities. I think someone else was trying to reassure them he was just a harmless eccentric. Unless he eventually turned out not to be.....

Being the opening night, "everyone" was in, so it was quite busy, obviously the next few weeks will be the telling nights, ie whether they can build on the success of the opening night. Have to admit, I won't be there next week, as I'll almost certainly save myself for Duckie instead, but I certainly hope to get back to YS soon.

I must say, the Vauxhall is looking better and better these days, every time I go they seem to have done some sort of improvement to the venue; new toilets, new floor, wood panelling above the bar, and a new counter for Activity Island (as the central table is called on Duckie nights) being recent examples. Unfortunately they still don't seem to have installed proper (any?) aircon. This wasn't a problem on Friday; although it had been 23C in London during the day, the fact that it was busy but not packed still left it feeling fairly comfortable in there, but on a normal bumper-to-bumper Duckie it's already starting to get very hot & sweaty.