100 Oxford Street,
London,
W1D 1LL
0872 148 3013
The ViewLondon Review
The 100 Club jitterbugged onto the London scene back when the girls were gals and the men were horny American GIs. And some of the 100 Club stalwarts doubtless remember the halcyon era of knee-warming hosiery and tea stained calves with some fondness.Boot-scuffed podiums, woodbine-heavy blackout curtains and a Formica bar staffed by Octogenarians is testimony to the colourful history of this forlorn basement sweatpit.
Squint through your plastic cup at the tattered pictures of BB King and you could easily imagine the jazz, swing, boogie and blues notables of the venue’s glory days. And to survive an evening out at 100 Club, nostalgia is a recommended approach.
Stop/ start Jazz and blues greats are hammered out on a squeaking system until middle-agers have had their fill of G&Ts and zigg-zagged off for a ‘old times’ fumble in the bus stop; then the addled Westend twenties – who fell in here after headbutting the software store next door – take to the chipboard for a schizophrenic revue of obscure 80s hits and tracks culled from Now Dance ’95.
Yet, however glaring the 100s limitations, you can’t help but love the place in all its baccy-spittle ridden glory. Central London clubbing isn’t what it was when the tillies were jiving to the bassline of falling bombs, and sadly so.
The beauty of going out in the capital is the chance – after seven whiskies and four forgotten trips to the cashpoint – of winding up in one of the city’s few hidden gems; where, free from the page three wannabes and congealing cheese coruscating in the neon light, you can dance like the twat you are and dribble cheap booze down your chin. Just like Gramps does.
The 100 club – last bastion of the lindy-hopping, rat-sideburned spiv – is a king amongst such forgotten gems; its two-up plastic scoop seats and plastic brewery ashtrays indelibly etched into London’s landscape as an ode to an era of true hedonism Clive, at Ritzy Titsy Disco Dome down the road, could never hope to emulate.