NEWS
A Fistful Of Fandango 3
21st April 2009

1 VENUE : 2 STAGES : 4 NIGHTS : 24 BANDS @ THE 229 VENUE

SEPTEMBER 9TH/ 10TH / 11TH /12TH 2009

"Club Fandango is the undisputed daddy of London's indie showcase scene, and, if you're a Time Out regular, you'll know there is plenty of competition for that position...”- Time Out

A Fistful of Fandango is back for a third year. The hipsters and the whipsters behind Club Fandango are exceedingly pleased to announce that A FISTFUL OF FANDANGO 3 will be taking place at the 229 Venue on London’s Great Portland Street between Wednesday September 9th and Saturday September 12th. This four night stand will once again see Team Fandango take over the whole venue to deliver the good punters of London Town six acts a night, with the three bands on the main stage interacting skilfully with the three bands in Room 2 - this year hosted by the ever eclectic Converse and Artrocker Music collaboration ‘New Blood ‘, the stage will present THE best new talent before the masses have their hands on them. All this is sure to ensure that there is nary a pause for musical breath throughout the whole jolly evening.

Always delighted to blunder in blindly where other sensible types fear to tread, Club Fandango set up A Fistful Of Fandango on a wing and a prayer in the then unknown 229 venue in September 2007. Maps, Shitdisco, Operator Please, Friendly Fires, British Sea Power, Good Books and Pete & The Pirates were just some of the numerous highlights from that opening four-night stand. Fanfarlo, Absentee and Malcolm Middleton were pretty darned good as well.

And so it was that A FISTFUL OF FANDANGO indelibly stamped itself upon the indie mini-urban festival map, snuggling in at the tail end of the festival season just in between Reading / Leeds Festival and Bestival. Like a moderately disturbed distant cousin of the Camden Crawl A FISTFUL OF FANDANGO merrily contrived to mix together the freshest of leftfield faces with established alternative talents, and did so again in 2008 when the cuddly likes of Fionn Regan, Shout Out Louds, Camera Obscura and The Clientele rubbed shoulderpads with Red Light Company, The Ruling Class, Frightened Rabbit, Broken Records and other bands with a capital ‘R’ in their name. This obviously doesn’t include Slagsmalsklubben, but they were ace anyway.

And A FISTFUL OF FANDANGO 3 promises to be bigger and more berserk than ever before as the crack Club Fandango booking crew gets up to springtime speed. Launched on a dank evening in 2001 by a wag from Pointy Recordings and another wag from fierce panda records, March 3rd 2009 saw Club Fandango celebrate eight years of promoting shows at its flagship Tuesday night at the Dublin Castle. If our remedial mathematics isn’t letting us down again that’s roughly 400 shows in one venue, which if nothing else demonstrates a level of loyalty and consistency which should alarm the more fickle elements of the music industry. The fact that our tenure has brought forth early live appearances for the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Death Cab For Cutie, Keane and Kaiser Chiefs is simply the icing in an immensely stubborn cake.

Away from the delights of Camden Parkway the Fandango tentacles have reached out to encompass current live promotions at the 229, the Borderline, Dingwalls and the Wilmington Arms. The brand, if you will, has also expanded to feature a fanzine called Zine Fandango, a record label called Label Fandango and a musky aftershave called Eau de Fandango. One of these may or may not be true. And of course the widely praised www.clubfandango.co.uk continues to inform the gig-going public with a clarity and directness sorely lacking in rival venue’s online witterings.

So then. 1 venue: 2 stages: 4 nights: 24 bands: @ the 229. And all happening in six months time.

Watch out for full band line up announcement to follow shortly.

WHAT THE PRESS SAY:

"Five years ago they put their ears to the ground and heard a burbling undercurrent of talent too small for the Goliath labels to notice. For the most part corporate rock still sucks but down here when no-one's looking, the futures being written. Sounds like its gonna be a great year" - NME

"...There's no better place to start than at The Dublin Castle's Club Fandango night. You always know you're going to see something good here.... Playing this new-band Mecca is a rite of passage: the Kaiser Chiefs, The Killers and Razorlight are just some of its graduates. So it's no surprise that almost everyone here looks like they're either in a band, with a band or trying to sign one..." - The Independent

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