Tipped

Cosy indie place

February 10, 2008

The Roxy is another indie-type place near Tottenham Court Road station. I don't know why I keep ending up at these indie places. I hate that kind of music, the guitars are rubbish, there's never a solo (WTF?) and it all just seems a bit hollow.

I suppose what keeps me returning is a combination of my friends liking these places, and that they are nights with a theme, of sorts. I think there's a scale you can put all clubs into. The further left on the scale you go, the more 'specific' the night is, and the more people go there for the music. So, rock nights, sub-genres of dance music, jazz, blues, things like that. On the right side of the scale, there's club-clubs, where people could give a shit less what the music is, and the places are essentially meat-markets. They usually play commercial pop/dance, cheese, R&B, or any combination of the above. Now, as people go to 'left' places for a reason other than 'get fucked and pull', the people tend to be friendlier and more open-minded, generally speaking of course.

The Roxy I would put towards the left, a little further left than Moonlighting, probably on a par of 'leftness' with the Astoria or KoKo's indie nights, if not a little 'lefter'. I was pleasantly surprised with the music played, as it was a little rockier than your average indie night, they even played Rage Against The Machine which was about the last thing I expected.

Another aspect this place differs, is that it is far smaller, and cosier. I actually enquired whether there was a secret door leading to another room or Narnia or something, but there was not. There are some leather seats all around the edge, which are actually free quite often, because the all the rest of the club becomes a dancefloor. Well, some people dance. Most simply bounce arrhythmically to the music while yelling incoherent things that vaguely match the song currently playing. My favourite moment was when a couple of Irish-style punk songs came on, during which we enlisted the entire stage area in a strange jig type thing, you know, the whole "link arms then jump around while spinning, then find someone else to link arms with and repeat" bit. Great fun but be careful carrying your drinks around!

Speaking of drinks, they were extremely cheap. If you like bottles of Kronenberg anyway (2 for £3). If you don't, the prices are a little cheaper than the London standard. Cocktail pitchers were cheap too, can't remember how much exactly though. Plus it was only £3 to get with a student card (£5 without), so money-wise it's a pretty good choice. This was on a Thursday, so I can't speak of any other night, but I think this is should definitely become your Thursday-night indie-playing club of choice.

Tags: cheap, indie, thursday. rock, cocktails,