There was a time when the nightclub under the Westway was easy to find ... you could spot the queues a mile off (before the council fenced off the area linking Portobello with Acklam Road, making this stretch even more of a backwater) ... and when you were rewarded with a great night out for making the effort. "Subterranea" was simply one of the coolest clubs in town, when nightclubs were still cool. Its "Neighbourhood" reincarnation still had a good local pull, while the "Supper Club" concept never quite took off.
And now it's MODE. Apart from the name, nothing much has changed, everything is still in the same place. But then again everything has changed. My office is located a bit further along Acklam Road and I often work late, never is there any sign of life - or even queues despite the serious railings and cordons and even more serious bouncers.
This is proof that running a nightclub takes more than just the basic ingredients:
- great looking space in dodgy location
- impressive looking PA system, operated by inexperienced sound engineer
- playlist heavy on Blur and Gorillaz - under the westway, geddit?!
- stock of cheap booze, sold at premium prices
- promoter filling the venue with band members, their familiy and friends
- underpaid bar staff with limited language skills, adding just the right amount of perceived rudeness to the mix
- staggered entry fees with no re-entry makes for a captive audience
It comes as no surprise that MODE lost its glass licence a few months back (did you know that venues are licenced separately for booze and recepticles?!). A punter got angry and broke a glass, now you get served from sticky plastic glasses. Wine is decanted into plastic bottles. We almost ordered a bottle of Prosecco - luckily the £49 price tag prevented us from having this be turned flat in the process ... also worth noting that the two bars charged different amounts for the same wine - worth checking before you order (£18 vs £25, just saying).
I am writing this on a Saturday morning after what should have been a fun Friday night out - I'm still angry. The reception at MODE was so unfriendly I almost walked off. Entry was free before 8 (staggered at £5 before 9 and £10 from 10pm) and involved running the gauntlet of two miserable doormen, queuing behind random guys delivering books (to a nightclub?!), being ignored by the fat bouncer until he realised he had to do a bag check and insist on ID - another side effect of having had a fight on their turf, nothing to do with underage drinking. Everyone was rude and my relaxed Friday vibe turned into a bad mood on entering MODE.
It is worth mentioning at this point that I had been here twice before on a Saturday morning when MODE hosted the West London offspring of Morning Gloryville - people from all over London were queuing to get in, you were hugged on entry and exit and everyone was smiling, i.e. it is possible to generate a positive vibe and fill this place with happy people!
But back to last night - everyone agreed that this was one of the worst nights they had. Why did we stay? Because we came to see one of the six or seven bands billed throughout the night, that's why. The sheer number includes a heavy hint of why it was doomed to fail, the night was completely overbooked - four good acts would have been better than all those fillers. Without soundcheck and with an engineer who didn't know what he was doing, breaks between sets were too long. This would have been OK at a pub but just looked rubbish in a night club setting with proper stage, lighting and special effects.
The result: the band we came to see had their set cut short - we suffered mainly rubbish music and bad wine for three tracks of the stuff we had come to hear! The night was completely random and ranged from grunge and old school rock, to Blur (see above) and reggae played in the gaps from the house PA - no DJ, and we left when the volume was turned up to 11 and before Don Letts took to the decks, if indeed he ever got a chance. As he was the biggest name on the bill he must have felt a bit perturbed.
Last night felt like living through the outtakes from a Spinal Tap movie - I think someone already mentioned the fire spitting organ in an earlier review, I was waiting for one of the last band's fake fur coats to go up in flames. Now, that would have made me smile ... read more