The Drop Opening Night

Phew… so only a couple weeks after the Butchers closed its doors to be turned into yet another gastro pub we now have a new late night venue in Stoke Newington. And, fear not, my gentle friends, I’m glad to be able to tell you that it is nothing at all like that fiendish place used to be.

The Washington Rays

The Drop is located just below the Three Crowns, just turn left instead of right once you get inside. It’s a bit of a box of a room with seating along both sides, a stage on one end and a bar on the other. There you have it, easy enough… you won’t get lost in here.

The bar basically offers a selection of what’s available upstairs, and while I certainly don’t need cocktails in a live venue I’m slightly disappointed that beer is only available in bottles. But then again beer makes you fat, and you can always get pints from the bar upstairs, right?

The bar at The Drop - nice and pink

Entertainment last night was provided by Daniel Chester and The Washington Rays. Unfortunately we missed Daniel’s show but I’ve got it on good authority that it was awesome as usual. As for The Washington Rays, I’m never quite sure what their sound is supposed to be but you could certainly tell they had fun last night… the stage looked amazing and the band managed to get the Stokey glitterati moving, who, by the way, had turned up in nicely manageable numbers, enough to fill the place but in no way overcrowd it. Oh, and the sound is surprisingly good for a small venue like this one… Hugh and Caroline obviously used their money wisely.

The Washington Rays

All in all a great new venue, and I’m looking forward to see more shows in the future. As long as they manage to keep the nasty part of the Butchers crowd out of here and don’t over let the place get too crowded I think we’ve got a winner!

Thanks a lot to Charmaine Ching for the photos… I didn’t know my camera had this much potential!