I Love the Nightlife

Had the kind of night out I haven’t had since the demise of Marvellous at Act Art 6 last night – performance, film, art, glamorous people ... and all topped off with a much needed bout of crazy dancing.

It was Kate Pelling who talked me into going because her film In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis in Pieces) was showing. I did the camerawork for it, so I got to walk around saying "I made this" in a stupid voice every time they played it and well, you know ... it’s the little things that amuse me.

I’d never been to Act Art before but was horribly impressed. It was held at The Arches near London Bridge and there were separate rooms for video, live acts, music and what have you. We spent most of the night in the performance room, being cabaret groupies, and saw some quality turns.

It was the people I already know who I liked best – my fave was Ryan Styles who did a superb piece that involved him standing on a pile of plates in high heels and filling glasses full of water from little teat titties down his front. Then he smoked a handful of cigarettes before pulling a mask down over his face as his balloon heart inflated out from his chest and burst as he died. Aw!

Scottee did three songs from his Buy a Better You show ... and a little later Feral from Cantankerous, who sometimes used to pop up at Marvellous, did a fantastic three song set. She used to be MC Kinky back in the day and much of her music has the same ragga inspired dance sound that Boy George uses. You should totally check out her track Dskasting on Beatport.

One of the surprise highlights for me was Andy Bell. I’ve always liked him but he’s never been one of my favourite performers and I’ve never seen him live before. Well, I did stand next to him in the queue at Tower Records once but that doesn’t count really, does it? Anyway, he came on to sing about six tracks, just using backing tapes, but he was FABULOUS! I suddenly realised that Erasure have provided the soundtrack to so many great nights in my life, right back to my early clubbing days at Jody’s in Liverpool. I felt myself get just a little choked at this discovery, especially when he did Stop! which has always been a favourite.

My other how-come-I’ve-never-seen-this-before highlight was Mark Moore’s DJ set. I’ve always loved S’Express, and the Theme From ... is a regular highlight of my own DJ mix, but for some reason I’d never seen him gigging before. Uh, HELLO – exactly HOW COOL is he, please?! From the first few bars of the opening track I was, like, SCREAM! He played the wickedest mix of Love Can’t Turn Around by Darryl Pandy – one of my top five favourite dance tracks EVER – and I was right up and strutting like a mad person.

You know what else I loved? Those of you who’ve seen him before will be, like, “DUH! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?” but instead of headphones he uses a TELEPHONE to cue the tracks up. Yes, yes, I know I’m totally behind the times but I thought this was HILARIOUS and now I want my own gimmick.

Perhaps I could get a pussy phone like on Graham Norton?