On the sauce with Snoop and Dre? I’m told I had a fabulous time
Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace
Gin & Juice from £2.50 per can, bydreandsnoop.com. Drinks at Flipper’s from £5. Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace, Ariel Way, W12 7SL, flippers.world
ROLLIN’ round Flipper’s, smokin’ Lost Marys, sippin’ on gin and juice. My god, I have only just recovered. Not because Dre and Snoop’s new drinks range is all that strong but because it was their first UK show in 30 years.
Unfathomable icons. No seriously, the whole thing was absurd. Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg playing The Next Episode to a millennial crowd of just 500, everyone shouting the lyrics,
standing on tables, dancing like they did when MTV came on at that legendary year 11 house party. Mine was the one where a lad from another school set a shed on fire.
And who expected Eminem to turn up to a west London roller disco and perform Forgot About Dre? Nobody. Any millennial would lose their mind, and I did mine. It was delirium, a cacophony of madness; it wasn’t long before guests started hanging off host Shaquille O’Neal’s big arms while people poured up the stairs from the smoking area past… Vernon Kay? But can I really remember? Hard to say.
That guestlist, by the way. It was like a ticker-tape parade. Idris Elba chatting to Jude Bellingham was a moment. Anna Taylor-Joy rocked up, then Jeremy Renner. Virgil van Dijk, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Ella Eyre and co came too, though who cares when we’re all listening to Drop It Like It’s Hot and Nuthin’ But a G Thang? Honestly. The room could have been full of journalists and I wouldn’t have cared. Oh wait. Yeah, so Gin & Juice, Dre and Snoop’s product. I mean, it’s fine, it’s like a hard seltzer — 5.9 per cent abv, low in sugar, refreshing — and it comes in four flavours: apricot, citrus, melon, passion fruit. I had several of each — all decent, the melon maybe the most proficent.
Dre is 59 these days, Snoop 52. Eminem is pushing the same and now looks quite a lot like David Gest. I hope to see them all play again. Sadly, there’s every chance I won’t. And so I am truly glad they decided to shimmy into branded booze. Every time I see it in Tesco I’ll remember that night at Flipper’s.
No sheds burning, sure, but absolute fire.