After the immense success of the first event, Future Dance has fast become the biggest hardcore event in London, so a lot of people were certainly looking forward to the second one. I arrived at the Castle Studios about 9.30pm and like before from the outside I could hear the music reverberating through the walls. Again, there was no queue at all and after a firm but fair search by the security, I finally got inside. I thought the security on the night did a good job. They seemed slightly more stricter then last time but they were generally friendly and respectful to the ravers. The first room you came into was the hard house room, which was already nicely filling up. The hardcore and old skool arenas hadn’t been opened up yet, so a lot people were just waiting around in anticipation, but still the hard house was nice to get into the mood of things. But before you knew it, about 10.00, the doors had opened up and the ravers fled into the hardcore arenas. First through the newly formed old skool arena (about 300 capacity) and straight into the hardcore arena (about 1500 capacity), which looked excellently done up. It had an Egyptian theme to it, with models of pyramids and sphinxes scattered about on stage. Real credit has to go the Go Mental crew for the amount of effort they had put into the night. The décor throughout the venue was excellent, with plenty of drapings, backdrops scattered about the place. The sound and lighting in all the arenas were of the highest order as well. They went to every effort, to give the best possible show for the ravers and all the ravers really appreciated that. The first DJ on the decks was Ethos, who played a reasonably good set. Playing a lot of classics like ‘Rainbow Islands’ and ‘Cloudy Daze’ , did its job of getting ravers on the dancefloor and setting the atmosphere. Next up was DJ Fade, who I’ve never seen DJ before, but I thought he played quite well. Dropping in a few freeform tunes like ‘Now Control’, blended in with some of the more familiar tracks like ‘Pilgrim’ and the new remix of ‘Elysium’. The atmosphere throughout the whole venue was excellent as well. Like the first event, everyone was there to have a good time and were in high spirits all night. There were ravers from all parts of the country and a lot of Northerners had travelled down for this, which was encouraging to see. Another nice thing which happened later on the night was a couple who just got married that day, and were holding their wedding reception at Future Dance !! MC Ethos announced them to the crowd on stage, and believe me the noise generated by the ravers nearly took the roof off, respect to them, true ravers. It was now 11.30 and time for the man of the moment, DJ Energy. As soon as the MC alerted the crowd that it was time for Energy, there was a real surge of people on the dancefloor and everyone seemed that much more up for it. He played another wicked set, this time dropping in a bit of banging German trance and also playing the brand new Nu Energy 16 + 17. Definitely the set of the night in my opinion and seemed to get the best reaction from the crowd. The Silk Cuts PA was next, but I have to say, I wasn’t really impressed with this. It was blatantly obvious that Bananaman on the keyboard wasn’t really playing it and not to mention that if you looked close enough the keyboard wasn’t even plugged in !!! If a PA is going to take place, its got to be done properly and professionally otherwise it looks tacky in my opinion, but still a lot of the crowd seemed to be enjoying it. DJ Impact followed on next, who I thought played a quality set. Seemed to play it less cheesy then last time, and more on the banging side. He represented all styles of hardcore in his set, dropping a bit of freeform, happy, bouncy, all nicely blended together. All the whistles and horns crew certainly showed plenty of appreciation for him. MC Whizzkid was on the mic, doing a good job as ever at getting the crowd going and Sharkey was bouncing around the dancefloor, showing to everyone he’s just as much a raver as everyone else. I suppose the only real downpoint for the night was the turnout. I honestly thought a lot more people would turn up for this event, I would say the venue was generally only about half full. There was only a small increase in the number of people from the first event, when I thought there would have been a significant increase. At times the atmosphere in the main arena, particularly towards the end, did seem a bit subdued and quiet. But I think with it being in June, a lot of people had exams and stuff, so we unable to come out raving at all. I’m sure next time, the venue will be a lot more busier, a good event with a solid reputation like Future Dance, should easily attract the numbers once word spreads around. Vibes was next on the Technics, alongside Livelee making one of his special guest appearances. Not a bad set from Vibes and a lot better then his last Raindance set. Didn’t seem to play as many rip offs as usual and stuck to playing more of the happy classics like ‘Funfair’ by Force + Styles and the original of ‘Hold me now’. But I get the impression Vibes has completely run out of ideas on new tunes to play to the crowd, so he has to resort back to playing the usual classics to keep the crowd on the dancefloor. Not too sure how long he’ll be able to keep that up. Next on the ones and twos was the mighty Scott Brown, making another rare appearance in London. He played a good set in my opinion, but nothing too amazing though. He rolled out a few of the Evolution classics such as ‘Healing mind’ and dropped in some of the new Evolution tunes as well. I really hoped though that he would was going to play it harder, like one of his banging Northern sets, but instead he opted for a more softer style set. I wish we would see more banging Northern style sets down in the South, we’ve been restricted from those sort of sets for far too long now. After that I decided to chill out so I headed off to the hard house room, which was banging out some good quality tunes throughout the night. Some of the tunes in there were touching on about 150 – 160 bpm. But the layout of the room, with the bar situated right in the middle, meant it wasn’t really feasible to get too much of an atmosphere going in there, but still it was nice to listen to. It was now 4.00 and time for the last hour. I decided to head for the old skool room for this as Sy had just taken control alongside MC Storm. It was a bit of a varied set by Sy, starting off on a 94 sort of tip, playing tunes like ‘Ravers Choice 1’ and then progressing onto newer sort if tunes like ‘Kick It’ and then back to some of the older happy anthems like ‘Heart of Gold’ and ‘Here I am’. Well the room was packed right up until the end and most people seemed to be enjoying it. As everyone walked out of the end to be greeted by warm glorious sunshine, which is always a nice thing after an event, everyone was in high spirits and seemed well satisfied with the night proceedings. Overall it was another wicked event, not as good as the first one in my opinion, but still a top night. The turnout could have been better, but that shouldn’t be too much of a worry, as the next one is taking place in the height of summer, so I’m sure a lot more people will be up for it. Respect again to the Go Mental crew for the time and effort they put into the night, they have really have set a standard in putting on good quality events. Big Shouts to: Joe, Paul, Cunning Kev, Peter, Andrew, Chedda, Happybounce, Emma, Jaimie, Carol, Jo, Ponder, Sonic, Icekold Pete, Stix, Happy J, Maxim, Jester the bloke, Peachy, Dimi, Mikey B, Barking Boy, Nita, Fussion, Billybass, Misdee, Michelle, Raver, Egg Fried Rice, Alister, Jon, Bridie, Rich, Jo, Snow, Tom U4ea, Adidas Matt, Beth, Paulie, Ade, Simon Mdma, Unit-E, Phick, Tina, Jester the bird, Chris Rolfe, Gyre, Tony……..…hugs to the girls, handshakes to the boys……….hope you all had a good one :) Over and Out Sam
