Stay Up Forever

Ahead of Jaded’s 3rd birthday, Roz Wilson looks at London’s vibrant afterhours scene.

New York is the city that never sleeps right? Well if Frank Sinatra was alive today, he may have decided to sing about London instead. London’s afterhours culture is one of the best in the world – for some people it even eclipses the conventional Saturday night out. Over time the scene has gone from a handful of party people in a couple of run-down venues to a scene within a scene – bursting full of energy and with a calibre of DJs to rival Saturday night.

London’s afterhours culture began in the gay scene with Trade, officially England’s first legal all night dance club, beginning at 3am Sunday morning and continuing until well after more conventional citizens were sitting down for roast dinner. For those who still hadn’t had enough, Trade’s afterparty DTPM kicked off on Sunday night (spending four debauched years here at The End before moving on to Fabric). London’s gay club scene has been gradually relocating to Vauxhall in the last few years, with clubs such as Crash and Orange leading the afterhours charge, and parties such as the outrageous Horse Meat Disco – a self proclaimed ‘21st century tea dance’ - welcoming everyone into its wonderful but wonky family.

When the straight club scene finally started catching up and opening its own parties, many of these were in semi legal venues – warehouses, flats that doubled up as clubs at the weekend, people’s roofs…anywhere you could stick a decent soundsystem and create a makeshift dancefloor. 24 hour licensing gave afterhours clubbing a legitimate stamp, and opened up more venues for potential use, but the scene has not lost its underground spirit. For many, afterhours parties have become a regular addition to the usual Saturday night out, and for others, it’s no longer the just afterparty, it’s THE party.

One of London’s best loved afterhours, Jaded, celebrates its 3rd birthday this week – a long time in the fickle world of afterparties. Promoter Krista used to run seminal Sunday party Babushka in Blackfriars a decade ago, before starting Jaded, which actually began as a party in her back garden on Sunday mornings. She explains, “However amazing the music had been the night before, it was the morning back at my place that we all looked forward to. There was a feeling of disillusionment with Saturday night music and mainstream crowds amongst me and my close friends and that’s why I decided to call our afterhours ‘Jaded’. As you can imagine, my neighbours were not too enamoured of us, so I decided to approach a venue and the rest is history.”

Initially at Egg, then moving to AKA in March last year, one of the factors in Jaded’s success has been the attention to detail in programming the night. The talented Raymundo Rodriguez is resident, and with the ability to persuade guests such as DJ T, Ralph Lawson, Jamie Jones and Rob Mello to drop in and play after their Saturday night set, the music has always been of utmost importance for the club.

And Jaded aren’t the only ones keeping people out way past sunrise. Shane Watcha started his Zombies Ate My Brain parties at 54 in Shoreditch because, “We were tired of going to the same afterparties where you would hear the same music from the night before. We wanted to do an afterparty that was not just a continuation but a night in its own right. Something a bit more sinister but also a bit tongue in cheek and always lots of fun.” Liz and Sonia wanted a venue that was a bit different, and so started Kubicle in Public Life – the infamous public toilet turned nightclub on Commercial Street. It's ironic that the closet thing you can get to Ibiza’s DC10 in London is actually a toilet, but hey – that’s the strange world of afterparties for you! Liz talks about the family feeling that the night has, which is partly down to the intimacy of the venue: “The Kubicle experience is completely different to the big club experience – there’s a relaxed atmosphere because we are so small and there’s no pressure of filling a 1000 capacity club, so we can concentrate on having a great party.”

With more and more afterparties opening all the time, are we getting to a point where there’s just too many parties and not enough people who can take the pace? Seemingly not – clubs such as Jaded, Zombies and Kubicle continue to pack clubbers in week in week out. Krista explains: “We are converting more soldiers to the cause every week. The scene feels like it is exploding if anything, and there are lots of new recruits to spread around.”

Is this insatiable appetite for partying really healthy? If you think you struggle on Monday after staggering into bed at 7am on Sunday morning, how would you feel if your head didn’t hit the pillow until 12 hours later? A proportion of afterparty regulars are DJs, bar workers and industry people who aren’t required to be giving a presentation to a board meeting at 9.10am Monday morning. But there are plenty of clubbers who love afterhours clubbing so much that they come week in, week out, despite having a nine-to-five, and it’s this commitment to the scene that helps make the atmosphere at these parties so special.

Jaded has a fiercely loyal following, and some of their regulars have even started forming ‘party posses’ – giving themselves names such as the Detakids or the Party Pirates, getting dressed up and staging impromptu dance-offs. It’s hard to find a regular night where you can let loose with such wanton abandon – so it’s no surprise that so many clubbers are so committed to the cause. Matt, a legal PA from East London, explains: “I go after-hours clubbing every single week. I will, without doubt, be found in Jaded every Sunday. London is also such an open minded, multi-cultural city that I think anything and anyone goes at the afterparties.” Beth, an Account Manager from Cardiff, travels to London most weekend to go to Jaded, and frequently gets in trouble at work for printing out Jaded stickers. “On a number of occasions I've woke up at 4am to get ready for the drive to London. My manager thinks I’m crazy - sometimes she catches me looking at pictures from the weekend and she can't understand why I would want to dress up in a tracksuit for the night or why I've got stickers saying ‘sleep is for the week’ all over my face!”.

And what about the promoters? How do they cope with having such a back-to-front lifestyle where day is night and night is day? For Krista and Raymundo, getting up at 4am is the start of their Jaded ritual. “We wouldn’t swap it for anything. We make espressos, get dolled up, maybe have a shot of something, then grab our bags and walk from Soho to Holborn. The silence of the streets is broken only by our buzzing phones. It’s a truly decadent beginning to the day and we wouldn’t swap it for anything.”

Far from being at saturation point, it looks like London’s afterhours scene is well and truly here to stay. With increasing numbers of clubbers becoming converted to the cause, and even choosing to stay in on Saturday night to prepare for a day of clubbing on Sunday – the scene is bursting with more energy and vibrancy than ever before. In some ways, afterhours clubbing makes a lot more sense. No hanging around waiting for night buses, and you can be in bed by 11pm on Sunday to get a full eight hours sleep before work on Monday. If you haven’t experienced afterhours clubbing at least once, you really haven’t experienced the diversity that London’s club scene can offer, and maybe it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee (coffee tequila that is…)

Top 5 Jaded moments

Krista shares her favourite Jaded moments with endclub.com.

1. The parties on The Jaded Bus, a green 1940s double decker which we kitted out with a soundsystem, heating and a bar. We were driving around celebrating our 1st birthday and there were a number of well known DJs, club promoters and journos on board when the bus broke down. A journalist from a well known dance music magazine jumped up on top of a nearby bus shelter and gave us all an impromptu song-and-dance routine whilst we awaited the bus’s repair.

2. On my 30th birthday I decided to celebrate with a tea party and made the entire club bring a cup and saucer. When they arrived they were treated to gin poured out of floral teapots, and some exceedingly good cakes. We also had the Jaded Tea Lady on hand. Not strictly a she, this ‘lady’ used to run around dispensing tea from an urn whilst flashing her drawers at all and sundry…

3. We have a Jaded tradition of impromptu old school dance battles, and on our 2nd birthday mine and my door girls’ team was not doing so well, so we surprised everyone by recruiting the UK B-Boy dance champions to our little crew. Everyone was in electric boogaloo dress, and those battles have never been beaten for their sheer silliness to this day.

4. Nick Correlli of MYNC is a great person to have at your party. One night, we had a toga party, and instead of DJing he covered himself in glory by wrapping himself up in paper towels until he was mummified, and ran around the gaff terrorising the girls.

5. Our ‘Fags and Slags’ party at AKA to celebrate the day the smoking ban came in earlier this year was brilliant. Exactly the tongue in cheek way we like to deal with adversity at Jaded. Everyone was expecting it to be a quiet day, but lo and behold it was our busiest party of the summer. The slag fancy dress was something special, and our makeover girls had a job on their hands fighting off boys who wanted more make up more then the girls.

Jaded 3rd Birthday - Geeks & Freaks - on Sunday 9th December '07

Nick Enseng - Kubicle photographer

Published: 3/12/2007

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