- The word "bar" normally denotes "not big enough to be a club" but Ghost Bar—consisting of a wide-spanning dance floor, DJ booth, a series of tucked away booths, a bar room and an extra lounge space—is big. It's not matter-big, but big enough you could call it a club. Ghost is also a visual wonder with its large frame decked-out in a Gothic palette of velvet blacks and middle-age grey brick that juxtaposes a few latter-day disco balls and a sleek angular bar which reminds why you're there.
Wonky Disko had brought a clutch of exciting talent (notably Terry of Freak 'n' Chic) to the ghoulish venue which is just a hop-skip-and-jump from the deceased Turnmills. And the men on the decks started work immediately on a spectrum of deep, sultry minimal grooves that arced through the night into punchier, big beat, tropical tech-house (the likes of Chrissy Maranello banged it out with fervour). It made for a welcome clash of colours—the ghoulish theme and the summery beats—and brewed the hip, skewed atmosphere that makes Wonky Disko shine.
However, the place rather ironically (considering the bar's name) was dead—a state that improved later but never saw the big dance floor busy. Ghost rather achingly "drip-fed" with people, something that isn't surprising when even I (guest-listed and reviewing the night) had to talk my way in to the place as I didn't have a girl in my group—we bypassed some blokes who had already been waiting some time.
It's not the first occasion I've seen this with new London clubs, or even old ones on a re-launch, and goes some way to show how frail the scene still is for clubs trying to break their way in. Maybe the night's early closure (4 AM on the flyer) may have put clubbers off? Who's to know? We were already on our way to the afterparty.
A much smaller venue in Shoreditch, Bar 54, was much more bustling with sweaty bouncing bodies than our first port of call. The crowd signalled their praises to Don't Techno Shit's big bass techno in banging fists on the basement dance floor's worryingly low ceiling. Italo Business' guests (Dandi & Ugo and Piatto) sent out rip tides of hard-edged minimal and quite clearly exampled, on just their 1st birthday, Don't Techno Shit's effortless ability to rock a venue, and make a bar seem much more like a club. Sadly, the night shut down early, but we left the club unified. Ghost might've felt the same unity had the club been a whole lot smaller and not been quite so spatially ambitious: Another case where bigger isn't better.