The Juice Box

In London the Sun Was Shining

Posted on May 7th, 2008 by Jim.
Categories: Event Reviews, Travel.

What can I say – I had the most amazing trip to London during the May Bank Holiday - a 3 night, 4 day, whirlwind trip to the heart of the clubbing world. Travelling with my friends Leif and Steve for our 3 tour of the year, I was taken on a crazy trip to London to see the sites and taste the culture of dancing, British style.

We arrived early Saturday morning from our overnight flight to London. We hopped into a car (pre-arranged by Steve) and quickly headed to Vauxhall to the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel. The hotel was beautiful and well done and located just blocks from the London Eye, Parliament our beloved Vauxhall. We dropped out gear and headed out to Smith’s to have breakfast with friends (some visiting from San Francisco and some from London). After a hearty breakfast we all headed out sightseeing taking in the Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge and a lovely walk along the Thames. The day was packed with things to see, neighborhoods to explore and an 8PM ride on the London Eye. I took many pictures of the sites and they can be found here on my soap box.

Following a lovely dinner we all set out to get ready for our evening out and our weekend of dancing and mischief. The first stop on the tour was XXL London. This was a great club with a gear night and time to enjoy the first of a series of London clubbing experiences. XXL is under the train tracks in a series of several arches. This creates some fun places to explore and dance. We spent the entire night at this club, meeting many locals and catching up with other friends. The music was not over the top sensational, but it was clearly fun and easy to dance to. We ended the night in the smaller hours of the morning so we could get some sleep before the mother visit of all.

Sunday we awoke for breakfast and headed to the RVT (Royal Vauxhall Tavern). This is the mother ship of dancing for the bear and local scene, as some would say, and the experience did not disappoint. We got in line early to get our armbands and then returned later for the best show one could ask for, the Dame Edna Experience. It was fantastic, fun, silly, and just all around a good time. I loved every minute of this. Following this we got to dance and listen to one of my favorite DJ’s, Andy Almighty. The music was great, but we ended the evening at RVT a bit early because more was to come and we would be back again the next day.

Our next stop that night was the club called Fire and the night called Orange. This was another amazing space, set into the railway arches. Several dance floors, and eclectic crowd, and music that made you keep dancing with your hands in the air, a smile on your face, and non-stop excitement. The lighting in this club is amazing, using many new LED technologies that are available. We were also treated a set by our good friend Wayne G, who we regularly get to hear DJ in San Francisco and I have also heard on many cruises, however, this was London and made it very special. This club has an amazing light box room with walls and ceiling covered with individual color changing LED lighting technology, allowing large images to be swept, like on a monitor, across the walls and ceiling, for some amazing visuals. While the music was nothing amazing in this room, the light show made up for it. Overall, Fire is a hot club, well run, great space and fun. The crowd the night we attended was fun, and basically it was fun because of who we hung out with and because I was there with friends. There was a typical level of American Circuit boys in the club, and that was something that was a first for me to have seen in London. We made a very late night (or should I say early morning) of this club.

Our final day in London was spent at the RVT, with another Dame Edna show.

I met so many wonderful guys in London. Friendly, fun, easy going and more than eager to get to know us and who we were. This impressed me the most, and certainly has given me the longing to return to London again (maybe this August but certainly by New Year). I want say that Steve and Leif are amazing travel companions, making a weekend like this, something so special that I had to often contain tears of joy for the fun I was having. Not to be forgotten was the chance to reunite with Wil (who I miss from SF very much) and Marcus and James (who live in SF) and to meet Martin (Wil’s new beau) and several other new friends (Martin, Ian, Mark, John, Tony, Michael, and far too many more to remember all the names).

Until the next note, may joy fill your lives and may you have eternal fun in the light of the disco ball.

P.S. You may have noticed the new “Juicy’s Juice Box” name to the site. This was a suggestion from Leif and something I like. I am seriously trying to get myself to writing more and more. I hope you will stop by often and see what is new or set up your RSS feed to pick my new articles. Cheers!

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