My night started outside Safeways, East Croydon, at 9.15 waiting for my raving partner, Dan, to escape the evil clutches of his mean boss and GO MENTAL. Having got to London Bridge the lack of the promised coach posed a bit of a problem. After waiting for the bus for a few minutes a blonde bloke asked us if we going to ‘that go mental thing’, he said that the coach had broken down and that he was giving ravers a lift in his car. So in we hopped. Anyway the driver happened to be the one and only Slippmatt’s older brother, which he only told us after I said that I didn’t think he was that great anymore, doh! Once we got in to the venue the first thing that struck me was definitely the amount of effort that had been put into the night, something that I was constantly reminded of throughout the night. The first set I heard was Sharkey’s. I personally thought this was a wicked set. The original hardcore nutter started with some wicked nu energy tunes like the excellent "waves of desire", despite this gaps started appearing in the dancefloor as the happycore purists left the room. Sharkey responded cleverly throwing down a few hardcore remixes of popular old skool tunes to get the room pumpin again, before unleashing some mental freeform culminating in his own collaboration with Marc Smith, "Death by Stereo". The MC for this set was odyssey showing some strong lyrics and his wicked scratching, who was later raving on the dance floor which was nice to see. Next up was Slipmatt, who for me played the same hardcore set he has been playing for around 8 months, not saying its a bad set, but it really doesn’t seem like he wants to be playing hardcore anymore, more on this later. Anyway this provided me with the opportunity to have a rave to the wicked old skool being played in the chill out room. The Nu Energy PA was certainly one of the nights highlights, Crazy Styles, Take me up and free the brain were placed together in a nice little freeform medley as the crowd went mental, not sure about any unreleased tracks though. Energy’s brilliant birthday set followed as he span out some top breakbeat hardcore from around 96, for me for energy to play a set like that while his own productions are getting progressively more trancey (like his Charley T stuff) showed how wherever he goes musically he will never forget the scene that he grew up on. One of the moments of the night was singing Kevin Energy and his twin sister happy birthday, top stuff! Won’t see that happen at a garage event. After the interesting Go Mental PA, which featured the excellent Vicki singing and an emotional Kaos on keyboards, Vibes took to the decks. I probably a bit rashley left his set to go to the chillout room. The DJ in there had built some banging hard house up to a climax of trancey uk house tunes (like "Sunstorm "by "Hurley and Todd"), but who was this wicked DJ, none other than Slipmatt himself. I have to say I was well impressed with this set, and maybe he should move into the house scene, if he can, as it's what he wants. He still loves and respects the hardcore scene, as he showed by hanging around with a load of mates, and enjoying the atmosphere, but if he wants to change direction good luck to him. Back in to the main room to stomp it up with Vibes to "the rave theme" before Impact stepped up, delivering a reasonable set including some good EV tunes. It was building up to the last hour of raving with DJ Kaos, who had clearly put so much effort into the night and more than deserved the final slot. He played Sy and Unknowns "6 days" remix, all his new Go Mental remixes including the "forever autumn" dubplate, as well as my current fave Scott Brown’s "Every time". Sharkeys hilarious drunken antics on the stage provided some background entertainment to a set that had the whole arena chanting "1 more!" at 6 o clock. The music stopped but on my way out I caught Impact and Vinyl knocking out some trancey scott brown stuff so I had a rave to that, before the security geezer told them too to turn it off. What a rave! The funny thing was the sets where nothing amazing, apart from maybe Energy’s set, there was nothing I haven’t heard before, its just that the music, for the first time, took a back seat to sheer atmosphere and entertainment , live P.A.s, singing DJs happy birthday, DJs and MCs raving and generally looking as mad as any raver, the camera man laughing at the crazy antics of the ravers and everyone carrying beaming smiles, these are things that have eluded raves of late, yet all of them where present at future dance. Never before have I been to a rave where the emphasis is on the raver not the promoters wallet. The atmosphere was electric, this wasn’t about big name djs, it wasn’t about huge collosal venues, and it certainly wasn’t about making money for the promoter, this rave was about the future.
