Rumour has it that all main indie clubs are the same (please not that 'main' indicated I'm not talking about the likes of Strange Fruit or Track & Field). Well, I reckon they are. In London, anyway. Go to Collide-A-Scope, Afterskool, Trash or Candybox and you will find that they're frequented by the same people. Every fucking time. There's always the obligatory guy with a stupid Rod Stewart hairdo and a bunch of notorious Oasis look-alikes. Then there's the girls. Half of them are confused tourists, the rest consists of Face Magazine slappers (no offence...).
Procedures are always the same, too: You manage to get a flyer, promptly miss the 'cheaper before eleven' deal and find yourself in some pretty empty venue, because it still IS quite early after all. Duh. Usually the DJ then continues to play nice songs that are wasted on the empty dancefloor. Disgrace. As time goes by, people start floating in and alcohol levels rise. After about two hours, girls will find themselves being chatted up by either lost tourists (in case you've seen the Eggcard ad where the woman buys herself a husband and when they sit in the car together he goes 'I laaaaav you verry mutsh', you know what I'm talking about!) or annoying locals whose main nightclub aim is to get into some female's pants. But no, I won't break out into a rant on that subject again. Usually that isn't a problem, anyway, because crying out 'FUCK OFF! I SAID I DON'T WANNA TALK TO YOU!' usually does the trick.
After a while, the dancefloor will fill and whatever twat is Djing will play at least three Strokes songs, that WILL be greeted with flying arms and puney indieboys jumping up and down in excitement ('Hey, look at me, I'm SO cool, I like The Strokes! I even recognise their dodgy album tracks that aren't 'Last Night'). As for myself, that's when I usually head for the bar and stock up on drinks (it's great not to be able to drink, because getting rather tipsy on four Reefs guarantees a cheap night out. So, HA!), dodging Jarvis Cocker clones and a couple of White Stripes T-Shirts ('Hey, look at me! I'm SO lo-fi, I like the White Stripes...').
Coming back to the actual dancefloor, has anyone else noticed that no one in an indieclub can actually dance? Luckily, no one cares, so shuffling with a vengeance, playing airguitar or doing the monkey dance (pintglass in one hand, fag in the other. Now lean back a bit, shuffle your feet and mouth along to the Stone Roses. Needless to say that girls don't do that kind of thing, like, ever!) tend to go un-noticed. And, as I said, it doesn't matter anyway, because everyone looks as pathetic as each other (should you ever encounter a bored-looking girl bouncing about stupidly to 'Debaser', whilst staring at her shoes, that'd be me...).
So you kill time with either dancing, fighting off strangers on the pull or comforting someone you don't actually know but you found being sick in the toilets (or am I the only person who does that? Come on, if you were upset and sick in the loo, you'd be glad if someone came to talk to you, surely). It gets to three, the music stops, the lights go on and you realise you've been standing in a massive beer puddle for the past hour or so. Hmmm.