The Shoreditch Shuffle

The Shoreditch Shuffle

15 September, 2008
by: Domzig

Guess what happened this weekend in Shoreditch? A festival. Seriously, it's getting to be a bit like a DFS advert down there at the moment; every weekend has the word festival slapped in front of it, just like the voiceover explaining how the £999.99 sofa is a special sales sofa and should be snapped up this weekend rather that just admitting that it costs £999.99 all the time.

Then again, you'd be forgiven if you'd missed The Shoreditch Shuffle – I've seen kid's 16th Birthday parties promoted to a wider extent than this 2 day event that featured the talents of some of the capitals up and coming artists, bands and DJs.

Basically, in what turned out to be the most prophetic naming of a festival since the Battle of Bog Side, The Shoreditch Shuffle boiled down to doing just that – shuffling around Shoreditch to watch depressed looking indie bands play to 20 people.

Probably the busiest I saw it was at the launch at The Last Days of Decadence on the Thursday. That was rammed with people necking free booze and watching an opera singer take his clothes off. But it was all downhill from there, with Saturday's line-up at 333 (which included Trash Fashion, Kids Love Lies and Ghostcat) playing to 50 people tops.

In fairness I did stop by The Hoxton Pony and watch Model Horror, Rank Deluxe and The Clik Clik playing to quite a few people, but I'm dubious how many were weekend punters, versus employees of Price Waterhouse Coopers who had been suckered out for the night.

Sunday was even worse – The early line-up at 333 played to pretty much nobody (maybe because the place stunk of rotten egg for some reason) and things were even worse at the Last Days of Decadence. I gave up by half-nine, by which time I was feeling like a extra in some post-apocalyptic movie and craving human company. I headed over to the free Brick Lane festival that had taken over 93 Feet East and Vibe Bar and that was rammed.

It was a bit of a shame really, as the Shuffle was a noble concept that deserved a bit of a crowd, but somewhere between vision and reality it all turned to shit. I mean compared to this year's Stag and Dagger, this was an abject failure.

Oh well, at least there's Airwaves and Concrete and Glass to look forward to...

Domzig