Duchess Review

Snowbombing Does The Duchess… twice!

Snowbombing arrived in Battersea with a bang this year… stopping traffic in the process! We promoted, partied, witnessed some ‘sick’ snowboarding and in the end, truly conquered…

Our decision this year not to participate in the official Freeze Festival, some say, was a brave one, but our well placed funky pub, talented DJs and tireless promo team ensured the weekend was a successful one.

The Duchess pub is conveniently situated on the festival site’s door-step making it the perfect place to do some cheeky marketing activities. The huge terrace overlooking the snow jump was the perfect place to kick back and have a few beers, whilst enjoying the best view of the riders on offer. The impressive banner we ordered arrived in the nick of time, so it could be erected in time for the festival beginning. Every single person in the festival could clearly see where we were, which clearly contributed to the great vibe we had in the pub each night.

Friday night was the first time The Duchess opened her doors to the hoards of Snowbombers and Freeze Festival goers. Within minutes of Freeze closing, the queue was huge.  Snowbombing favourite DJ Cuddles started the evening with his mish-mash party tune set. Everyone was enjoying the good vibes, dancing along to a great selection of tunes (including MC Hammer’s ‘can’t touch this’) before the mighty Loose Cannons jumped onto the decks, cranked up the volume and rocked The Duchess like never before (also blowing the sound-system twice in the process). The atmosphere was electric as hundreds of people tried to pack into the pub. Over 150 people had to be content for a place outside in the cold, in the vain hope that people would leave so they could get in… this, unfortunately, was not going to happen!

Dubsteps new talent Skism was then tasked with the challenge of following the Loose Cannons’ impressive set from. A daunting task, but his wizardry on the 3 CDJs was mind-blowing. He mixed, remixed and threw down some serious examples of his technical ability that left everyone in awe. Before we knew it 2am had arrived and we had to drag the dancers out the pub, who were still looking for more.

With a bit of a sore head and the treble still ringing in our ears, Saturday morning was slightly painful, with the blurry memories of consuming vast amounts of Eristoff Black, egged on by the Loose Cannons, who are known to be fans of the spirit. But with the clear success of the previous day and evening in our minds, we were looking forward to the Saturday ahead.

As it was nearly Halloween all of the promo team would get dressed up for the occasion. We donned the ‘taches, one-piece 80s ski suits and wigs before interacting in the most banterfully polite way possible with the thousands of festival goers entering Battersea. After a good few hours of promoting, people were already packing onto the terrace of the Duchess, ensuring they were in the pub to avoid the expected rush of people from the previous evening.

Rattus Rattus & Klose One dropped in for the first set of the evening before they had to rush back to Shoreditch for the Urban Nerds Halloween party at Xoyo. As it was still early, they did not play their usual heavy dubstep rollers and instead treated us to some brilliant old-skool hip-hop and some great current remixes of chart-topping music. Following this brilliant duo, DJ Cuddles jumped on the decks for his ‘Push it Good’ DJ set. Unfortunately the other half of the TBX duo could not make it down, but no matter as Cuddles had the dance-floor heaving. The mix of Halloween, Snowbombing and a great party saw some very interesting outfits. A collective of space troopers, amongst other ghoulish characters, were soon up on the tables dancing away, much to the astonishment of the pub’s landlord.  Due to the crowd density, Al Murray decided to let this behaviour continue… and it was not long before the Snowbombing team were up on the nearest piece of furniture to join them.  The Urban Knights were chomping at the bit to get to the decks, nearly having to wrestle Cuddles off, who was unsurprisingly having the time of his life with the crowd eating out of his hands.

The Urban Knights were not going to be outdone and opened their set with a banger of a tune. Klaud & Benny were obviously in the mood to keep the party rocking and did not disappoint. They kept great tune after great tune coming to a totally appreciative crowd. Everyone seemed in the mood for it, as random decorative objects in the pub were used as dancing props. The venue started to get a bit quieter around 1am as some people left, regretfully, for their pre-planned Halloween parties or clinging to the slim hope that they would be able to catch the last train home. This gave the thankful remaining ‘now’ Snowbombers the room to express their dancing moves; certainly interesting!

When 2am came around, we turned off the music and persuaded the remaining crowd to be on their merry way, many heading in the direction of the Urban Nerds party. We were feeling exhausted, but happy that we had made the decision to ‘do The Duchess… twice’.

If you missed it, you missed out. Until next year!