Orange: The Official Pride Closing Party – 3rd July 2011 (Fire, London)
The Only Way is Orange – billed as the official Pride Closing Party and so how could we refuse to attend – it would be b.itchin rude right? Definitely! And we’ve never ever been to Orange. Ok you can get up off the floor now, it’s true! for some reason we’ve done Later, Open, Gravity and even Popcorn but never have those tangy citrus fruits enticed us into their clutches.
But feeling like it was our duty to be ambassadors for Pride stewards and join the closing celebrations.
Arriving a bit late – well you know, we had a disco nap, but at 3.30am we graced the Fire back entrance with our presence. A jovial security lady welcomed us in, and we soon discovered no discounts for stewards from the less than jovial guy in the hut – maybe next time.
Entering the club, the back way then gives you the immediate issue of needing to go to the front of the club to the coat check – there must be a logic to do with time of night/day as when they can use the front door – maybe it’s on a time lock? Like a safe? All that music just trying to break out. So the short walk through the main room was easy enough with it not being “AsOne style” full.
We grabbed a drink from the bar that overlooks the main floor, from a very sexy twink barman - who definitely gave me his telephone number telepathically - and stood on the walkway overlooking the crowd. There was a right bunch of odds and sods – some people who looked like they had been partying from the start of Pride weekend – but plenty of talent – obviously a younger crowd – who else can afford not to sleep on a Sunday night. And immediately gazes started to reach our eyes – well this is where we met ourselves – the angelic Latino-b.itch perched on the walkway with a light shining on him as if from Heaven. Awww.
But then Fat Tony took over the decks and that classic Eurythmics track ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ started to sample through a track and before you could say ‘Annie Lennox’ up stepped Tonnic to deliver those powerfully charged lyrics
“Here Comes The Rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion”
The floor was packed, hooked on every wood swooning from Tonnic’s lips, ever since we first saw her at The Edge a few years back we’ve been a great admirer of her ability and general friendlyness, “So baby talk to me, Like lovers do, Walk with me, Like lovers do, Talk to me, Like lovers do” and we just stood there with Tall.Bitch’s arms wrapped around me loving every word of emotion – “I want to kiss like lovers do” and we demonstrated that part so easily.
Tonnic seemed to be back and forth all evening with multiple appearances, all as brilliant as that unexpected first. We ventured through to the mirror arch and the ‘Raw Room’ where residents David Jiminez and Gonzalo Rivas were hard at work and guest DJ Nick Tcherniak - we sampled their skills while we took a drink on the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ illuminated bar dance floor only to find a couple of ‘not our types’ not taking the ‘no’ not so seriously, so we made a quick exit via the garden – which was a bit too chilly for our desires – we headed back into our comfort zone of the main room.
It was a bit stop start for our musical taste, and went through a mashed up phase for a few ‘tracks’ but then settled down into track after track of pure delight – now we don’t know whether it was The Oli or The Sharp Boys but from 7.00 – 8.30 we were entranced by a musical delight that meant every stalker, admirer, cutie, hottie, and the rest just melted away as the both of us entered a period of romantic dance-athon that brought us closer and back to our early years at A:M. Track after track became non stop favourites and beautifully rolled into tracks such as the “Juanjo Martin - Millennium feat. Rebeka Brown” (not sure if that was actually the one played). But the CO2 cannons had shot their clouds of mist over the dance floor and the lights were down to lasers and then the “Millennium” chants started – with its haunting spoken vocals and then mesmerising chorus melody drifting through the dry ice – we were in an eerie world of darkness and sound and flashes of green laser lights – feeling alone yet together lost in the midst of time.
We just didn’t want it to end – but as the iPhone clock approached 08.30 and the main floor still relatively full – we believed a quick exit would prevent some boring queue. And you know us – exit when you are feeling great before anything can spoil the experience, so it was a b.itchin good goodbye to Pride 2011 via a very very fantastic introduction to Orange and it certainly has no connection to the awful TV series TOWIE that its latest reincarnation was named after - as surely we believe “The Only Way is Orange” to be true.
Coming out into the harsh streams of sunlight it was surreal to walk past the commuter going to work as we wandered off into the sunlight to sip our very own glass of Tropicana.