218. The Bug Club
VILLAGE UNDERGROUND
1 March 2024
It’s St David’s Day, and here we are on a freezing night in a grimy dive in Shoreditch, sweating it out in what used to be a skate park sandwiched between an old warehouse which, with the addition of some corrugated tin to keep out some of the elements, has now transformed, phoenix-like, into a shrine to garage-rock. Exactly where you'd not expect to be on a night when the cold would wilt the petals off a daffodil.
This wasn’t just any gig. This was the one I decided I absolutely had to drag my daughter, now nearing eighteen, along for to show her the other side of gigging. The side that involves standing on sticky floors and dodging moshers rather than enjoying a civilised sit-down session with VIP access. As a seasoned gig-sitter-downer myself, I figured it was high time for a pilgrimage to the Church of Sweaty Garage Rock, with my kid winging it right along beside me.
Prepped and fuelled by an oily carb fest at Pizza East, we stumble into the venue in a state somewhere between cheesy bliss and food coma. The space is packed, thick with a questionable mix of humanity. We are peering on tippy-toes over a weirdly homogenous crowd, with heads bobbing up and down like human whack-a-mole.
The band is a gaggle of Welsh rockers, hammering out three-minute songs like they’re in a rush to catch the last train back to Monmouth. The music is loud, raw, and sounds like it’s been crafted in a basement, which, of course, it probably was.
There is energy and it is a noisy cacophony, but somewhere around the seventh track, everything starts to blend into one long wall of noise. It is kind of fun, more for the fact that I am here with my daughter. However, it’s also a Monday, my feet ache, and I’m starting to wonder how much longer we need to stick it out for the authentic “experience.”
We hang around for half their set; not bad for a gig where every song seems to end almost before it begins. By the time we leave, I’m convinced my kid has had the “real” garage rock experience, complete with sore feet, ringing ears, and probably no small amount of nostalgia for comfy seats and a VIP wristband.