- Shoreditch is home to more music venues than you can shake a falafel wrap at, but if you ask me, nowhere does it quite like the Horse and Groom if you're into disco. From the spectacular August Bank Holiday Warm/Discovery all dayer to October's Moxie Disco Party, it has become the place East London's disco community call home. It seemed only fitting then that come New Years Eve I bade a fond farewell to the year that gave me so many memories in the place that hosted them.
Walking into the venue through the original pub door always carries a buzz of anticipation. Clips from classic films are projected onto gilded-framed screens, big disco basslines rumble across the floorboards and quaint antique furniture sits alongside the original pub fittings, all overseen by a solitary suspended disco ball.
Discovery residents opened proceedings with some mid-tempo tunes. The Brothers Johnson's "Strawberry Letter 23" and an edit of Fern Kinney's "Groove Me" proved to be winners with the early crowd who had gathered to pick their spot on the floor. As the downstairs started to fill up promisingly, the bold vocals of Jocelyn Brown on Cerrone's classic "Hooked on You" seemingly took things up a notch and paved the way for DFA disco maestro Ray Mang to welcome in the New Year. Midnight came and went without so much of a whisper, the chimes from Big Ben sounding like little more than a novelty doorbell when thrown into the whirlpool of dancing bodies and heavy disco beats that was now in full swing.
No sooner had the nation finished singing "Auld Lang Syne" than Mr Mang greeted 2011 in his own way with his own personal edit of Marvin Gaye's "Funky Space Reincarnation," followed quickly by the brilliant Jimi Bazzouka edit of The Jan Hammer Group's "Don't You Know." As the night went on Rob Mello took control, expertly tending to the already frenzied dance floor which had spread from a small space in front of the DJ booth to engulf the entire bar and seating areas. Jacques Renault's remix of "Beam Me Up," which in the short space of a few months has become nothing short of a modern disco anthem, was as popular as ever.
One of the best features of the Horse and Groom is the upstairs "boudoir"—a charming, dimly lit nutshell of a room which has the ability to stir up some intense dance floor energy of its own. Behind the decks on New Year's Eve was DJ crew Bad Dimension, who went from nu-disco to psychedelia, ESG's "You Make No Sense" to Ronnie Hudson's "West Coast Poplock," selecting music from an array of styles and creating a danceable sound unique to their sets. Always eclectic, never dull. Just like the Horse and Groom itself.