You Had to Be There

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2000s nostalgia
2000s pop culture
A01=Jodie Harsh
Amy Winehouse
Author_Jodie Harsh
BRAT arena tour
Category=DNBF1
Category=JBCC
Category=JBCC1
Charli XCX
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
G-A-Y
Kate Moss
Lizzy Goodman
Meet Me in the Bathroom
Munroe Bergdorf
noughties culture
noughties nostalgia
Pete Doherty
RuPaul
RuPaul's Drag Race
Troye Sivan

Product details

  • ISBN 9780571392414
  • Dimensions: 153 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 25 Sep 2025
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
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'Gallops through the pre-mobile phone era with wit and chaotic energy.' Sunday Times
'
A joyous rags-to-riches tale.' Financial Times
'Nostalgic, salacious and bitingly witty.' Joe Lycett
'A delicious, neon-soaked fever dream.' Munroe Bergdorf
'I couldn't put it down.' Annie Macmanus

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.

Jodie Harsh is nothing short of a dance floor icon. Her blonde beehive and thumping DJ sets have taken her from London's underground to the global stage, and she remains at the centre of London nightlife. Her DJ sets headline festivals, her own releases have garnered over 40 million streams to date and she has worked her remixing magic on everyone from Beyoncé to Charli XCX. You Had to Be There is her first book.

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