{"id":4251,"date":"2011-05-09T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T09:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=4251"},"modified":"2011-05-09T11:49:06","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T10:49:06","slug":"dulwich-ukulele-club-may-ball-japanese-rock-go-go-and-ukuleles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/dulwich-ukulele-club-may-ball-japanese-rock-go-go-and-ukuleles\/","title":{"rendered":"Dulwich Ukulele Club May Ball – Japanese rock, go-go and ukuleles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

With Japanese rock, Morris dancers, Actionettes and our good friends the Dulwich Ukulele Club playing live, the\u00a0May Ball at the St. Thomas More hall in East Dulwich was well worth the trip into darkest Dulwich.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The venue is located at\u00a0116a Lordship Lane and is a bit of a bugger to find – so much so that by the time I’d cycled there I’d missed the first act on the bill, the New Esperance<\/a> all lady Morris Dancers.<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

Happily, I was there in time to catch the\u00a0enormously\u00a0entertaining\u00a0No Cars<\/a> -a \u00a0female power trio from Japan (via Hackney).<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

A member of the Dulwich Ukulele Club was enlisted to hold up a drawing for each song.<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

No Cars playing their\u00a0fabulous\u00a0“I Love Sellotape” song. The band were witty and sharp – and I hope to get them along to an Offline Club night soon!<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

Next up was the 60s go-go girls, the Actionettes.<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

The venue really was an odd, and\u00a0slightly\u00a0depressing place.<\/p>\n

It reminded me of the old\u00a0working\u00a0mens clubs I used to play in the Welsh valleys, with horrible stark lighting, old fashioned\u00a0furnishings and bar staff that could only be described as ‘less than\u00a0enthusiastic’.<\/p>\n

The hall even had roll down shutters on the bar that gradually slid down as last orders approached. The last time I’d seen some of them was on a cross channel ferry!<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

Mmm. Say hello to the 1980s corner!<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

Headliners, the Dulwich Ukulele Club rocking the stage. The band were a heap of fun.<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

The kindest way I could describe the stage lighting would be to suggest that its stark, all white lighting was perhaps hoping to emulate David Bowie’s 1976 Station to Station tour which was famously\u00a0Spartan.<\/p>\n

But that really is being too kind. It’s a pretty awful stage set up and I’d certainly never want to put on a show here.<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

That said, the band’s energy levels made you\u00a0forget\u00a0the\u00a0grimness\u00a0of the venue and the set went down a storm.<\/p>\n

\"Dulwich<\/p>\n

Crowd inside the hall enjoying the band.<\/p>\n

Moments after the band finished, you could almost hear the sound a large lever\u00a0being\u00a0slammed down as a flood of harsh, unforgiving \u00a0fluorescent\u00a0light beamed down from\u00a0above\u00a0conveying\u00a0one simple message: leave the venue\u00a0immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Japanese rock, Morris dancers, Actionettes and our good friends the Dulwich Ukulele Club playing live, the\u00a0May Ball at the St. Thomas More hall in East Dulwich was well worth … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,196,194,17,193],"tags":[5,180],"class_list":["post-4251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brixton","category-nightlife","category-london-features","category-photos","category-places","tag-bands","tag-dulwich"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/dulwich-ukulele-may-ball-may-2011-15.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-16z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4255,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions\/4255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}