You Had To Be There by Jodie Harsh

You Had To Be There - An Odyssey Through Noughties London, One Night at a Time.
 
The defining book on the iconic noughties-era of pop culture in London as told by DJ Jodie Harsh, who saw, did and survived it all.  Jodie Harsh arrived in London aged fifteen in 2001, heading straight off the train from Canterbury to her first club night at the Astoria. Intoxicated by this initial taste of city nightlife, she didn't leave the party for years, falling in with the right wrong people and exploring the sides of London best experienced under cover of darkness.

Throughout the noughties, from Camden and Soho to Mayfair, from Notting Hill and Primrose Hill to Hackney Road, the city was a messy, beating, slick and sordid melting pot. New music, new fashion, new art, all came together in a mad, dizzying rush before - and during - the financial crash of 2008. Different scenes collided, exploded, were reborn and shaped across the city, at rapid speed.

Harsh grabs us by the hand and leads us back to those decadent times: from the Astoria to The Cross, the Soho Revue Bar to Mahiki, Boombox to The End and her famous friends' houses; to a time before social media and cameraphones were ubiquitous and a life without their perpetual scrutiny allowed for a more liberated, hedonistic and creative existence. You had to be there, and Jodie Harsh was. Every single night.
 
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'A delicious, neon-soaked fever dream.' - Munroe Bergdorf
 
'Nostalgic, salacious and bitingly witty.' - Joe Lycett
 
'A must-read memoir from a London nightlife icon. You might not have been there - but reading this is the next best thing.' - Eliza Clark

'Incandescent, tightly paced . . . As tender as a raw wound, You Had To Be There is both an experience of pure euphoria and bittersweet nostalgia. This is a deeply electric and evocative love letter to freedom of expression, ambition, survival and queerness, and frankly, I promise you it's unlike anything you have ever read before.' - Lucy Rose

'It is impossible for me to think about culture in the late 2000s without thinking about Jodie Harsh. In this vivid and heartfelt re-telling, Jodie lets us in on the years where she quickly became the doyenne of London nightlife and the vanguard of cool . . . Both a compelling personal story of a boundary-pushing queer teenager, who almost loses themself in the glare of strobe lights, and a careful rendering of a time in London that, post-recession, had almost slipped out of my memory.' - Shon Faye

'This poignant and page-turning memoir chronicles a decade's worth of London history with generosity, insight, and wit. Funny, charming, and beautifully written, You Had to Be There is a richly vivid document of contemporary nightlife.' - Oisín McKenna

'What a book. It's a testament to clubbing from someone who was most definitely there. I loved every page.' - Fat Tony