Urban Journal

Camden, Underwhelmed

Growing up among the rolling hills of Wiltshire, Camden Town felt like an unreachable oasis; home to many of the urbane, impossibly cool (well, so I thought at the time) bands I worshipped. Ten years on, I journeyed across Mecca of my youth. Perhaps I was setting myself up for disappointment.

The sprawling World’s End and its subterranean sister club, the Underworld, are perhaps Camden’s nightlife, still seen as one of the best in Camden of course, home of the indie chancer and epicentre of many changeling music scenes. I just wanted to hear a few good tunes - the kind you can dance to, that can ignite a damp squib of a night. They simply didn’t come, replaced instead with an underwhelming selection of mid-paced songs. I feel like I’m either behind the times, or just being a tiny bit snobby, but one week on, I’m still struggling with the song choices.

Classic bands like The Strokes and Kings of Leon were represented, but with ‘Last Nite’, a song that’s impossible to dance to, and ‘The Bucket’, which comes to a standstill in the chorus. The most depressing thing about the whole night though was a total lack of originality. The disinterested bar staff, shabby toilets and sticky floors began to feel like a façade once the playlist, which wouldn’t have been out of place in a Mondeo, started to take shape.

Perhaps the Underworld has become a victim of it’s own success, forced into reverting to cliché whilst having to appeal to an everyday crowd that want songs they’ve heard on the radio. Wandering off down Chalk Farm Road an hour before closing, however, it was hard not to feel totally underwhelmed. Now, when’s the next train to Swindon?

By the way, as promised I have been keeping up with this enigin PLC blog. And I promise all of you that it is actually a really good read, you should all look into it.