A "Cause" for a good time
A recent addition the London scene, The Cause is a new favourite venue of mine
I’m looking up at the sky and praying that the weather holds out. It’s been an absolutely dismal start to the London 2024 summer season with April being essentially rained off and May only featuring a single week of sun so far. Today, however, it has to hold out as we’re heading to The Cause.
The Cause
For those who follow the London clubbing scene closely, The Cause will not be an unfamiliar name. It originally opened in 2018 in Tottenham and quickly became one of London’s best clubs and even survived the Covid pandemic. Unfortunately, it became victim to a very London curse and had to shut its doors at the beginning of 2022 to make way for a development of new build flats replacing it, much to the dismay of the London clubbing scene.
We can get a taste of what the original club was like by seeing the pictures from its closing party on New Year’s Day 2022 here or by taking a look at Resident Advisor’s tour of the venue below.
The Cause was also more than just a club and spent a substantial amount of effort raising money for charitable causes amongst other ventures. The versatility of the operation is evident in their pitch deck here.
Two and a bit years later and the founders Stuart Glen and Eugene Wild have finally wrapped up development of their latest iteration of The Cause on Dock Road near London City Airport. It’s not been a quiet 18 months leading up to this though, with the team throwing an impressive array of warm up parties in the meantime during the build. The duo have even opened up a new bar in Hackney Wick called All My Friends which has become a favourite of mine to visit.
And so here you find me, on a Saturday in May with my eyes to the sky, praying that the dry weather holds out. For I’m about to try out this latest addition to the London clubbing scene, The Cause.
Dancing Outside
Walking in, we’re greeted by a large open space with the single outside stage to one end and the entire space flanked by shipping containers. Despite the industrial backdrop of the former east London factory and concrete floors, I immediately felt like I was no longer in the city. In the queue, we were lucky enough to witness the sun making its way out from behind the clouds and inside we basked in the suddenly gloriously sunny day that we had wished all week for.
“Feels like we’re at a festival”, a friend remarks. “Can’t believe we’re still in London.”
Above us, the IFS Cloud Cable Car trundles along and in the background we can see the looming towers of Canary Wharf. Both provide this otherworldly feel to the venue and I can only agree with my friend, it feels like we are at a festival.
The outside stage itself is at the apex of a horseshoe of shipping containers two stories high, that have been adorned with wooden planks adding a tasteful warmth to their aesthetic. The ground floor is reserved for the main outside bars and upstairs for dancers wanting a better view with holes cut in the sides providing a fantastic perspective of the stage below.
It’s 4pm and Amaliah has taken to said stage. The sun is out and beating down on us and it’s at this moment I realise I should have packed some more SPF. Upstairs we head and bunker down in the welcome shade of the containers. From the vantage point we can see the full scale of the place, both behind the stage and opposite is an abundance of seating, filled with people. We see smoke rising from the food stalls nestled amongst the benches.
As the afternoon progresses, we bounce between the chaos of the dance floor and the welcome respite of the overlooking balconies. It’s an excellent day. Amaliah is followed by Shanti Celeste who in turn is followed by Moxie and the crowd are loving it. It never once feels too busy and everyone is in a great mood.
The proximity of the bars to the dance floor makes it really easy to get drinks during the day and, aside from an apparently lengthy queue for the womens’ toilets, it feels like a really accessible and well thought out space.
The Switch-Up
As the day nears 10pm, the sun sets, and we descend into The Cause’s nighttime ritual. This kicks off quite jarringly when the music simply stops outside and the lights come on. Coming to, we’re looking around seeing others also experience this sudden jolt.
Gathering ourselves, we realise that this is the transition to the inside of The Cause and take a moment to grab a seat and assess the situation. Looking down at my watch, I notice the time and am instantly reminded of how this is usually when we leave many of our day parties. But here at The Cause, I have no intention of doing that. The energy in the place has me yearning to continue.
Inside The Cause
It takes us a moment to find the entrance to the inside, walking past the deactivated and quiet outside stage, past the food trucks and seating, past the toilets, and nestled right in a corner of the outside space, is the entrance inside.
A wall of heat greets us and my mate immediately leans over and says: “could add this one to your blog, mate.” To be fair to him, he’s not wrong.
Looking around, the place is a maze. The entrance is to the side of the main room which is spread over two levels. Downstairs is the main dance floor with the DJ booth close to the centre of the room (we’ll come onto this) and then dancers arrayed out around it. In the corners of the downstairs dance floor we come across raised platforms granting dancers a better view of the booth. As someone a little taller than average, I don’t often struggle with this in clubs but I find the addition of the platforms a really nice touch for those who may find the crowd chaos a bit uncomfortable or overwhelming.
Upstairs is a mezzanine level, with the opening almost directly above the DJ booth. It’s a little less hectic up here and a wide range of seating is available around the opening. A bar is present to one side and another staircase to the other, allowing dancers to access both sides of the dance floor downstairs which was wall to wall with people.
We make our camp on one of those platforms downstairs after a brief tour of the inside.
“It’s a good setup,” another friend says.
“Yeah, shame the other rooms aren’t open,” I reply. From what I’d heard of The Cause, there were a possible 6 rooms available inside. I may have spoken too soon, however, more on that later.
Looking over at Club Fitness, the DJ currently playing, I can’t help but notice the positioning of the DJ booth and seeing how it affected the dynamics of the room. It’s usually the case at venues like this that the DJ is to one side of the room with the crowd facing them. Boiler Room were a large part of bucking this trend in moving the DJ to the centre of the room with the crowd around them. The Cause, instead, has a mix of both. The booth is large and wide and sits just in front of an alcove in the wall of a similar size. It’s not quite in the centre of the downstairs dance floor, but neither is totally against the wall.
Another thing that some clubs do is raise the DJ up on a stage (think Electric Brixton, any of the Broadwick Live venues, or KOKO). The Cause this time keeps the DJs on a similar level to the dancers or below them in the case of the alcove dancers making their way behind the booth.
This combination gives the place a surprisingly intimate feel to it even given the several thousand capacity it could potentially hold. The DJs are pretty much in the crowd with you and you dance alongside them. Upstairs, through the mezzanine opening, you can see the entire DJ booth really clearly. This proximity and view into where the DJs are working adds to this intimacy.
A friend suddenly taps me on the shoulder: “I think we’ve lost someone.”
Looking round, I notice we have. “I’ll go find her,” I volunteer.
Running upstairs, I’m thinking this is light work. There’s only the one room open right? Surely it can’t be that hard?
Wrong.
I’m walking along the back of the mezzanine layer and I’m struggling to find our friend. Where on earth could she be? As I get to the back corner of the floor I notice people going into and out of a door that’s been left ajar at the back. Curious, I make my way over. I hear beats emanating from through the door.
Suddenly, I find myself in another room. With low ceilings and a smoky atmosphere, it had a totally different energy to the main room. Instead of the more airy vibe of the main room with its tall ceilings and wide dance floor, this room was darker, more intimate, and heavier. Music included. Rhythmic, heavy beats thundered through the space and the crowd moved with a ferocity unmatched by the other room.qw
My friend appears out of the smoke, “mate you gotta get everyone else here, this room is sick!”
I run to fetch the others, “I found another room!”
And so that’s how the rest of the night progresses, bouncing from room to room, basking in beats until late into the night.
Whilst The Cause has a closing time of 5am tonight, our early-ish start of 4pm makes me realise that being there until close may be a bit of a stretch for my aging body. However, Shanti Celeste and Pangaea were doing a back-to-back at 1am and I knew I wanted to catch that.
We are slap bang in the middle of the main room dance floor when they come on. Only four of us are still left standing out of the original 15-odd people I came with and the room is still pumping with the more fresh-faced post 10:30pm entry ticket holders having joined the fray. I can’t believe the energy filling this place, it’s still wall to wall inside and people are still dancing away with the same intensity that was present 6 hours prior. Taken aback is not a term I often use when describing events like this, but it’s more than fitting today.
“This doesn’t feel like the UK,” one of my friends turns to me. “It feels like we’re in Europe, the energy is mad.”
Shanti Celeste’s b2b with Pangaea is amazing and their energy behind the decks matches the crowd. Their proximity to the crowd is delightfully cosy and the rough and ready setup of having blinds covering the windows adds a feeling that we’re in someone’s living room instead of a club in East London.
Home Time
1:45am rolls around before I know it and I can feel my legs slowly turning to jelly. It’s high time to head back, I’m thinking. Saying goodbye to the remaining session soldiers of the day, I snake my way out of the crowd, wander outside past the toilets and food trucks still bristling with people, through the outside stage in the midst of the being cleaned up, around security checking in yet more new entrants, and out of the club.
What a day. What a venue. I’ll be back soon.