It had finally arrived, the hours had ticked away, it was the 2nd December - time for Resonance at the Scala. Tony Raindance had decided to start up his own Old Skool / Hardcore rave, and after all the excitement leading up to it, the event was finally upon us. After some dodgy Metropolitan line / Chiltern line shenanigans and a swift half (or was it a whole one?) in a pub in Angel, myself, Kat, Andy and Nat eventually arrived at Kings Cross for the USH pre-rave meetup. Miss Go Mental came and told us that the USH crew were in a nearby pub, so we made our way down there to meetup with some familiar faces. At about 10:30pm a few of us made our way to the venue, and I met up with Kev and we entered the unknown territory (in raving terms) that is called The Scala! I think the best way to highlight the contrast between this venue and other raving venues is that by the end of the night my white gloves were - wait for it - STILL WHITE! Amazing - I might actually use them again - a complete shock to me not leaving the venue with dirty, smelly grey gloves! We entered the lobby area, made our way up some serious amounts of stairs and walked into the Hardcore room. My first impression was that the venue was so clean and so well proportioned. When I looked over the balcony onto the Old Skool arena I couldn't believe it! The Scala is an old theatre - so I guess the Old Skool room was the stage, backstage and the stalls. There were two bar areas where I guess the Dress Circle and Upper Circle would be. The Hardcore room must have been the upper seating bit - I would say it held about 300 or so ravers - with the Old Skool room holding about 700. So, Kev was up first on the decks, and when the carts finally arrived, and the amp switched on, our very own DJ Voltage started spinning his tunes. I feel sorry for the rest of the people who weren't let in till about 11:30pm cos you all missed the first part of an absolutely blinding set. He started off with some older tunes, mixing into Scott Brown's Hardcore Vibes, and cranking up the bpms. All in all, a wicked set, mixing old and new to perfection - getting the crowd up for the next DJ. Yes, that's right, it was time for the legend that is DJ Brisk! Brisk must be a promoter's heaven, as I really think that you can guarentee that every time he is booked he plays an absolute stormer. This set was by no means an exception! An up-front set of the highest quality, mixing brilliantly (what else could we expect?), selecting only the best new tunes. MC Elmo was on the mic - as he was most of the night - and I really do think that he deserves a paragraph of his own here. With all the new DJs coming through, you would have thought that a similar thing would have happened with the MCs. OK, there is a "core" of blinding MCs at the moment (Storm, Whizzkid, Odyssey et al) that have been around for a fair while - but there hasn't seemed to be a great influx of new, quality MCs like there has been with DJs. But Elmo has really stood out from the crowd - he is the one to watch for the future. I have so much respect for this geezer. I've heard him MC at Raindance and Elation, but to be honest I'd never taken much notice - but at Resonance he really MCed to perfection. So much energy, so much talent - whereas many MCs only serve to piss you off, Elmo really got the crown going. Wicked - keep it up mate!! Blimey, anyway, who next? Yeah, that's right, it was DJ Bosha on the decks. Bosha played a nice set from 1997 to modern, up-front stuff. I stayed for most of this set, jumping up and down like a mad-man, trying desperately to avoid Crissy begging me to spank her botty (haha), and wildly attempting to kick Happy Bounce. I stepped out onto the balcony at one point during Bosha's set to check out the view, then suddenly remembered that Brisk was on the decks down there! So I jumped down 23 flights of stairs and found the Old Skool arena. Quite a lot of the USH crew were on the stage, strutting their funky stuff to some superb old skool sounds from 1992 to 1995 - so I decided to show them how it was done. After making a complete tit of myself in the Old Skool room I got the climbing gear out and started the ascent up to Mt Scala (2023m). I stopped at Base Camp One (the VIP Bar thing) and had a quick nosey around there. After getting completely side-tracked, once again, I completed the rest of the ascent - I even forgot my breathing equipment, but somehow managed it anyway. Altitude sickness was taking its toll, so I took some medication for it (hmm) and was just in time for the start of Uplift's set! (OK, stupid moutain metaphor will now stop!) Uplift, once again, played a stupendously spectacular set - mainly new stuff, incorporating many exclusive dub-plates, including DJ Voltage's National Grid - wicked tune! A quick word about the production around the whole venue I think now. The sounds throughout the venue was clear and loud (I think it could have been a little louder in the hardcore venue though at some points), the lighting was very nice in the Old Skool arena (the hardcore arena was good too, taking into account that it was the second arena!) and the laser in the old skool room was superb. The venue was apparently fully air-conditioned - and to be honest I did notice it, and it was nice to be kept reasonably not-boiling, if not entirely cool. I was advised by many people to make sure I left the hardcore arena by the time Ponder and Happy Bounce came on (actually, I think it was Ponder and Happy Bounce that told me that) - but I ingored their advice and endured a whole hour's worth of clang-festing! Haha, no, honestly, this was probably my set of the night. They played some wicked classics from 1995/6 (just my style!), with some superb scratching from Ponder, and MC Elmo on the mic again. When "Euphoria" came on, I was, erm, in euphoria! Then Incognito was played, and I went truly bezerk - I needed almost all of the next set just to calm down!! The next set was meant to be Herman and Storm - but to be honest I only saw Storm there, but I could have been mistaken (I was seeing things that really I shouldn't have been seeing that night, so I don't entirely trust my eye-sight). Anyway, Storm seemed to be playing lots of new unreleased stuff from himself and Herman, mixed in with some tunes from the last couple of years. I was raving for most of the set, but somehow kept on wandering off in random directions and ending up in completely strange bits of the venue, talking to people I had never met before, forgetting countless numbers of peoples' names, visiting the toilet many times, but always leaving the toilet without filling my water bottle, then having to go back in, then forgetting again, etc, etc! Bizarre. DJ Kaos was to play the last set of the night, and with MC Ethos on the mic he got the place going again, right until the end. The hardcore arena did tend to vary drastically in terms of people dancing all the way through the night. At some points the floor was almost full, yet at others there seemed to be not so many ravers dancing. Strangely enough, though, it didn't seem to correlate with the quality of music being played, in my opinion. But anyway, sure enough, the floor was full for Kaos' set - playing lots of new tracks from himself and others - including that one by Kaos and Ethos, with that trancey vocal bit, which speeds up after the intro, anyway I can't describe it, but for some reason that vocal has stuck in my head and I really like it. For some reason the only times I've really heard Kaos sets have been at the end of nights, and I'm normally really knackered by then, and don't seem to appreciate the sets as much as I should - but I enjoyed this set - ending the night well. All in all, I was impressed. I was impressed with the venue, I was impressed with the people, the music, the production. I was extremely impressed with the turn out, especially as it was Resonance's first rave. Now, personally I had no trouble whatsoever with the security, in fact if it weren't from what others had told me I would be sitting here saying how wonderful they were - I didn't even get searched (only cos I went in half an hour early), and didn't actually talk to security all night. However, I have heard grumblings, I did know that Jexxy got chucked out (how they could pick the one person that really deserved to get chucked out the least out of everyone in the venue astounds me), and other little things. It was a slight shame, yet I fully appreciate that that is the venue's problem, nothing to do with Resonance, but all the same I have the greatest confidence that little things like this will be ironed out for Resonance 2! And on that note - BRING ON RESONANCE 2!!!! And that was that - Resonance over, so I stumbled out of the venue, sat in Kings Cross station for a couple of hours (don't ask me why), went to McDonalds, took a train to Camden, wandered around Camden Market for a few hours, got really confused in Cyber Dog, somehow found ourselves staring at strange pot-bellied pigs and weird birds, walked down a canal thing, enventually found a public toilet, sat in the womens' loo for a while (again, don't ask), found Oxford Street, walked down there trying to collect as many leaflets as we could, went to Boots to get my photos developed, sat in a bookshop for an hour, got very concerned that people were looking at us, had a cup of coffee (about our fourth that morning), went back to Boots, found out they'd actually been late in developing the photos, got them for free, sat in McDonald's again, looked at photos, realized it was about 4pm, got really worried about what we'd been doing for 10 hours in London on a Sunday morning, then got a train home. My god. Massive huge shouts and hugs to: Kat (Little Miss Feline), James, Nat, Andy, Kev, Caine, Muzzy, Jexxy (you're really really absolutely gob-smackingly oh so sexy), Nic and Dan from OneLove, SiMDMA, Barking Boy, Paul, BeckiBoo, MissGoMental, Ponder, Happy Bounce, Sonic, Uplift, Crissy, Androooo, Stix, Icekold, Elmo, Dan and Joe Haynes, Viking, Fussion, Space, DJ Storm, Jamie, Tony Resonance, Dick Raindance, Richard Raindance, Grant Epidemik, Peter Ethos, Danny, Brisk, James Bosha, Kaos, all the DJs, all the MCs, everyone I met, everyone I didn't meet! Tom Bennett / DJ U4EA
