Fancy seeing in the New Year with the old school? Indie Amnesty is here for you

Guitar anthems all night, cheap drinks and a house party atmosphere. Turns out you haven’t left it too late to have the best NYE ever
Roxi Rahmanzadeh
Hamish MacBain31 December 2023

As anyone who has frequented them knows, there are rules to an indie disco. Strict rules. The entry fee needs to be cheap, the drinks even cheaper, the dancefloor sticky and the tunes an anthems-only affair: if a chorus comes and at least half the room are not bellowing along to its every last syllable, then organisers of said indie disco have failed. 

A perfect way to spend New Year’s Eve, in other words. And for the second year in a row, Indie Amnesty are planning on providing all the above and then some at 21Soho on Soho Square.

‘Everything else on NYE seems to involve 14 courses, spending a year's salary or going to a warehouse 20 miles outside of London,’ says organiser and DJ (and comedian) Alexandra Haddow. ‘Tickets are a tenner because indie discos have to be cheap, even on special occasions. Plus we're not Tories.’

If you've already been to one of their (many, usually sold out) nights, then you'll know that Indie Amnesty know what they are doing. They’ve been at this since January 2020, when Haddow was strolling around Hackney Wick and spotted a huge poster advertising a gig by The Subways.

‘I didn't even know they were still together,’ she smiles. ‘An indie landfill group that were one of the first bands I ever saw live when I was 15. I'd lived in London at that point for ten years and I'd never been to an indie disco here. Out of interest and frustration I tweeted saying, “If I put on an Indie night in East London, fiver in, and we all just pretended it was 10-15 years ago for a night, who would come?”’ 

Said tweet immediately went viral and tickets for the inaugural evening of sticky-dancefloor nostalgia sold out within a couple of days. But there was just one problem: the night, at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, was booked for April 12 of that year and… well, we all remember what was going on in April 2020. It finally took place in August of 2021 and, no doubt enhanced by the fact everyone had been cooped up making sourdough for 18 months, ‘it was the best night out ever.’ 

Many more nights would soon follow. ‘In between booking the venue and eventually holding it, I met a DJ called Joei Silvester in a pub we were both working in to pay the bills,’ says Haddow. ‘And he, along with the landlord of the pub we were working in – who used to throw the indie nights I missed in my hometown of Corby whilst we were growing up – arranged to DJ it for me. I really, truly intended for it to be a one-off night, but due to its success, we put another one on and Joei taught me how to DJ. Then another one. Now we DJ it together and it's like a giant house party.’

The music policy should be obvious, though as well as The Stones and Bowie and all your blue chip Britpop heroes and Arctic Monkeys, you’ll also get Fountains DC and Wet Leg: proof that this is not an entirely retro night out. 'As my friend Caroline says, it's “a nostalgia night without feeling like one”,’ shew continues. ‘It's so unpretentious, everyone just comes for a great night. I don't think I've ever seen anyone being aggro, and people always seem to get off with each other, which is my yardstick of success.’

The good news is there are still some (of course cheap) tickets left for this evening, so if you’ve not got plans and don’t fancy taking out a bank loan to have a good time, you know what to do. Just remember the organisers’ yardstick of success, and do what you can to help out.

Get tickets for Indie Amnesty tonight at 21Soho here

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