Dingwalls celebrates 25 years of rock n roll!

I went along to Dingwalls on Sunday for an all day rock n roll party celebrating the 25th anniversary of the club.




Throughout the day and night, various djs (Mouse, Little Carl, Tall Mark and Jerry Chatabox) played jivers, boppers and strollers. Cheeky hep cat quartet, The Caezars, kicked off the live musical entertainment before headliners Big Sandy and his Fly Rite Boys took to the stage.




This Camden-based club is a London institution, and it showed, by the sheer amount of people who tuned out the celebrate at the Dingwalls 25th anniversary rock n roll dance. The place was packed!


The Caezars were bounding with energy - it's brilliant to see such a fun and charismatic British band, who are so young, take to the stage with so many well-established musical greats and wow audiences. I shall look forward to seeing them again at Viva Las Vegas next month!










Who doesn't love Big Sandy and his Fly Rite Boys? Certainly, everyone at Dingwalls on Sunday did, and this was reflected with a lot of audience interaction (and shot taking - did someone mention tequila?) throughout the show. Good to have 'em on UK shores again.








As with The Caezars, Big Sandy will also be playing at Viva Las Vegas!

Bullfrogs, dinosaurs & hepcats!

The Piccadilly Bullfrogs played at The Blues Kitchen in Camden last Thursday night, so we went to check them out. The Blues Kitchen hosts many a great musician and most nights it is free to get in, so if you want a cheap night out with live music, this venue is a good bet.




This three-piece band was great - fun, charismatic, danceable and enjoyable to watch. There was even a washboard that featured in a few songs - need I say more?!


We had a lot of fun, and even though there was only a tiny space to dance, (due to the amount of tables and their positioning in front of the stage) we still managed to get in a few, and will undoubtably be enjoying more when the band plays at The Cat's Meow next Saturday.




Friday was non-stop museums as we went to the Science Museum, V&A and The Natural History Museum. The Apollo 10 space capsule is currently on display at the Science Museum, so we decided to focus our visit on astronauts and aviation (there is so much to see, and frankly, museums tend to drain my energy after a couple of hours, so we chose a theme to stick to).






There is a 4D Imax film about the Apollo 10 mission that is playing there at the moment - smoke, water, moving seats and 3D glasses. The film is set on the moon, and although it's not really all that realistic, it was still quite fun!








After the Science Museum we headed to the V&A for a look around. I love the marble sculptures on the ground floor. It is amazing to be able to walk through beautiful rooms and hallways filled with sculptures that are hundreds of years old and not behind any glass casing.






Finally, and saving the best til last, we went to the Natural History Museum. Exhibitions aside, this is pretty much my favourite building in London. It's soooooo beautiful and intricate, both inside and out. I love the fact that this gorgeous building is so accessible to the public - apart from being a museum, it is also free to get into (as are the two previously mentioned museums).








Saturday night resulted in some seriously achey feet on Sunday morning! We started the night at Bar Zensai for the rockabilly happy hour - great music, yummy 2-4-1 cocktails and it's freeeeeee! It got pretty packed, and as well as a couple of dances and a couple of rum and champagne cuban cocktails, we had an annoying couple of minutes when we went to leave and all our stuff had been moved by staff to make way for a group of girls out on a hen night. Apparently they thought that we were capable of leaving the venue without our bags and venturing out into the cold without our coats, so one of the managers stowed our stuff away. Annoying, but once we realised it hadn't been nicked and found it all, we hit the road and headed to Saturday Night Swing, which was fun fun fun and hours of non-stop dancing!

Bopping & Knocking!

Fun fun fun fun funnnnnnnnnnn! That's what the past month of weekends have been!

Let me delve into the vaults of my memory, back to early October, when we headed to the 23 Club in Brisbane for the Bombshell Bop. The night was organised by Nor-Cal rockabilly ladies, The Bombshells, who are well known for their events celebrating rockabilly and hot-rodding.




I had never been to the 23 Club before, and I really liked the space and vibe of the place. It is big enough to fit quite a crowd, and there is a good dance floor - so of course we spent the whole night dancing our little socks off!




The bands that played were The Rhythm Shakers (from LA), Charlie Roman & The Teenage Werewolves (from SF) and Jailbreak! (from Fresno). They were all great, with fun sets and really danceable music. All of the musicians were also very entertaining with their performances and interacted with the crowd well.








Loads of friends and familiar faces filled the joint to celebrate the birthday of Kim Bombshell which made it extra fun! This was definitely one of my top nights out on this trip so far.


The weekend ended up being jam-packed full of good music and lots of dancing, as the next evening we donned our cowboy boots and headed to The Knockout to see the debut performance of The West Coast Ramblers (featuring Jay, who is also the drummer in The High-Rhythm Hustlers) and headliners Kit & The Branded Men (who I've been wanting to check out for a while now).








Both bands put on great performances - The West Coast Ramblers were so smooth, I never would have guessed it was their first live show, and Christina the lead singer/guitarist in Kit & The Branded Men has a really pretty singing voice and is a kick-ass (and very stylish) front person for the band.








I managed to get in a lot of really fun dances with my sweetheart, and we often had the dance floor to ourselves (which is always good, when the dance floor happens to be quite small). I have finally discovered that my cowboy boots are the best footwear for me to dance in at The Knockout. The floor is so uneven and bumpy, but I was able to spin comfortably and smoothly in the old boots. Yeeeehaaaawww!


Added bonuses to the night, aside from good music, friends and good dances, were; photoboothing (we had to do two takes, as a certain someone's big-ass cowboy hat kept edging me out of the frame in the first set...) trying a sip of Four Loko (I only had a sip as a) it was nasty and b) I felt tispy after one sip - that stuff is dangerous) and getting late-night papusas across the street at El Zocalo afterwards. Yum.