21/11/15: I don’t often go to Vauxhall. Not because I’m one of those basics who are like “OH BUT VAUXHALL’S SCARY”. In fact, quite the contrary.
Maybe it’s because my friends consist of Soho drag queens who are too uppity to go South of the river, and East London drag queens who think South Of The River are a new conceptual queer art performance group in association with VICE Magazine.
Anyway I’m glad I did, because I had a right blast! An inaccurate cliché of Vauxhall is that it’s unfriendly, shirts off, wordless dancing and posing. Not the case! Well, not at Fire anyway! I ended up going by myself, expecting to have to prop up a wall with an awkward pint. Instead, I got chatting to all sorts of people.
Maybe everyone was in high spirits! Or maybe it was something to do with the insanely tight tank top I was wearing. Either way, there were some lovely people. Matthias and Asli, for example, they were a right pair. Matthias was fresh from his hometown of Berlin and kept going on about how he got crabs at the Berghain, and Asli said she’d run away from her family in Turkey three days ago and was just “loving life.” You go Asli! They were phenomenal.
Another thing that was phenomenal was the music! I’m usually just happy with a good old Freemasons remix, but courtesy of, among others, house music legend DJ Taito Tikaro, it was more than just “UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ.” I can’t think of an example right now, but trust me, it was.
Fire, South Lambeth Road, SW8 1RT
Words by Dylan Jones
Photos by Nicolas Chinardet
