Dragonette - Proud Galleries, Camden - 6/7/07
3/5
By: Christiana Spens
I take the tube to Camden after work in Soho, and meet Alex at the tube station after I've been standing with waifs and strays for a while in the wind. We embrace and trip off towards Proud Galleries happily as it's been forever and ever since I saw Alex in Wonderland. He suggests we go to the Cuban bar next to Proud as he's fading away and buys me the most awesome Che Rebellion cocktail which is actually more expensive than his burger, but is amazing. The big painting of Che looks down in disapproval at the sight of the price tag but don't hate the drinker, hate the bar.
Then we go to Proud. It has an Alice in Wonderland theme, lots of poseurs. We start imitating the people there and I say, "Like, where are all the famous people?" and Alex says,"Behind you" because Donny Tourette is sitting all alone on a bench next to us. So we join him. He's friendly until he asks for a cigarette and neither Alex nor I have one, at which point he walks up and leaves before we could casually ask him about Peaches and fame.
We look and listen and quickly become a little frustrated and bored by the crowds. Although everyone's drinking, not many people are smiling and it's all too much like a school disco at first with groups of girls and groups of boys and awkward shuffling. All the boys want to look like Kate Moss and all the boys want to look like Pete Doherty, whose image is drawn across the fabric of a deck chair, along with some other rockocracy. I can't help but feel that it's slightly insulting that people are sitting lazily in the portraits of icons, but then maybe that's the point. As rebellion goes, that's pretty lame though. Armchair socialism has never been so literal.
We're also a little disconcerted by the hallucogenic décor and the stags' heads hanging on the wall, painted partially in red. There are also big double beds (yeah, like the beds in Fabric, and in the episode of Sex & the City where there's a club called BED) - all reserved for people who aren't even there. We begin to wonder if they even exist. Maybe it's just self-promotion. Maybe it's all a lie. Maybe it's meant to be provocative. Je ne sais pas. I don't even care. But it would have been nice to lie down. We don't like stupid VIP beds taking up all the floor space.
(Get a Room.)
There are also fake green leaves the colour of cider bottles fluttering in the breeze like an artificial Eden, several TV screens showing 'Alice in Wonderland' in various neon shades and huge toadstools. There are weird support bands that nobody is watching. There is a lack of absinthe. And a red chandelier.
Outside we wander, and tread onto beer-stained fake grass and hear a train rattle past the rooftops and it's all pretty. Turns into a bit of a crush, like a garden party painted by some artist on acid, and we're the spectators and the props at once.
There's a sign that says, 'Drink Me' and another, behind the bar, that says, 'Nothing But Liquid [On Pain of Death]' that we spend a while trying to understand.
Alex in Wonderland and myself wander upstairs to another more secret part of the club, which is way quieter and less crushed by indie fakes. But not for especially long. We haven't been looking at the photographs hidden by pale chiffon and the rock 'n' roll portraits for long before the barman changes the music to something awful, and all the crowds from below filter in "like flies to shit" says Alex. I concur.
We're about to leave because we're sick of waiting for the band. But then Dragonette start that minute.
They're very cute, very camp, and less glamorous than the pictures on their MySpace. Their sound is less sharp live. But they're endearing, they're sort of touching in the way they radiate such joy of performance. They're having fun, even if the Irish guy next to me isn't: "You're CRAP!" he declares, and Martina's a little pissed off. But she recovers, and the Irish guy drinks some more. I notice that the air smells of stale beer and sweat and feel sad about the smoking ban. Where's the cloud? Where's the atmosphere?
Aside from the smoking issue, all is well, except that we feel we've been transported to the 80s.It's not just that Dragonette, with their synthy sensibility and ingenuous passion for provocative songs, have supported Duran Duran, or that everyone's a bit affected by the 80s revival in their clothes et cetera. It's just the vibe. Just as I whisper to Alex, "I feel like I'm in the 80s..." A man walks in front of us wearing a tee-shirt that says "Tour of 1984". Yeah, that EXACT second.
And then Alex says, "Where did the last 20 years go?" and I say, "Have I been born yet?" and then it's time to leave. We've heard the songs, and it's all a little surreal, but sure, we'll go to Proud again... Only next time with absinthe and cigarettes...
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