When I first heard about Slammin Vinyl were doing this event at the Que Club I was absolutely delighted, as its my favourite dance venue anywhere. I’ve been there quite a few times in the past, for the old skool night Flashback and also for the legendary techno event Atomic Jam. It was good to see Slammin putting on events in different places and I was interested to see how this one would turn out.

The Que Club in Birmingham is in Birmingham City centre and is about 10 minutes walk from New Street station. I got there at 9.45 to find the biggest queue that I’ve ever seen at the Que Club. They had unusually put credit card bookings in the main queue at this event, so I joined the back of the queue. Despite the size of the queue, they kept it moving well and I was inside for about 10.15. I had an average search from the security guard and then put my coat in the cloakroom.

The music in the hardcore room hadn’t started when I went down there ,so I went into the old skool room for a bit. Nicky Blackmarket was on the decks playing classic tunes like ‘The Lighter’ and the room was pretty full even at this early stage. I stopped in there for about 20 minutes then headed back to the hardcore room. The Trixta (aka Vinyltrixta) was on first playing hard house. He played a good hard set and the crowd all seemed to be getting into it. After him came Sundissential resident Paul Kershaw, but I headed off to the main room. This room is undoubtedly the best thing about the Que Club, and is like a huge theatre with the dance floor in the middle and then seats all around going up high like a football stadium. I could try and describe it in more detail, but it really does have to be seen to be believed.

At this event the main arena was drum n bass with Nicky Blackmarket on the decks. He played his usual set of classics like ‘The Chopper’ and that new ‘Original Nuttah Vs Bambaata’ remix. I then headed back into the hardcore room to see the first hardcore set of the night, which was Dougal. He played mostly newer stuff like ‘Wanting to get high’ and ‘Its alright’ on Raverbaby, then finished off with a few classics like ‘Get into love’. After this it was back to hard house with Sarge. He played a good hard house set which included the wicked ‘Access’ by Tim & Misjah, although I didn’t think he was as hard as when I last saw him play at Slammin in April.

Next up was Mistress Mo from Flashback, also playing hard house. But I decided to head back to the main arena to catch some more drum n bass. I think it was Zinc on the decks and he played a pretty new set, most of which I hadn’t heard before. The flyer originally said that Mark EG was booked, but when I got in and check the lineup posters, I discovered they had replaced him with M-Zone. I didn’t mind this because out of the two, I actually prefer M-Zone. I made sure that I headed back into the hardcore room for when he was on, but I was disappointed to learn that he hadn’t showed up. It was a shame as he is one of my favourites, but Mistress Mo was now on for 2 hours and I caught the end of her set.

At 4.00 came along Sy and MC Storm with some banging hardcore. A few years ago these were one of my favourite acts and seeing them here bought back a few memories, especially when they did their joint scratching together. At the last few events I’ve seen Sy play, he’s just tended to cane loads of old anthems over and over again. But here he played much more newer stuff, which was better to see. He played ‘Hold me tight’, the ‘Now is the time’ remix, the ‘Break of dawn’ remix and then a few older tunes like ‘Elysium’, ‘Kick it’ and ‘Set you free’. I really enjoyed this set along with the rest of the packed hardcore room and one of the best of the night.

Last set in the hardcore room was Vibes, but I really didn’t fancy seeing him, so I headed back to the main arena to catch Brockie. He played a good set with a few well known tunes and was accompanied on the mic by Shabba. I can see now why he’s a lot of people’s favourite MC because I thought he was really good lyrically and pretty fast. The mark of a really good night is when it gets to the end and you are still dancing full out. As it reached 6.00, I was still raring to go and I felt I could have gone on for a few hours more.

Overall I thought it was really good event by Slammin’ Vinyl. The Que Club is an amazing venue and moving the event further north to Birmingham meant that it brought in a whole new crew. The atmosphere was friendly and I didn’t see one bit of trouble all night. Best of all I can’t really think of any faults that the night had. The security are very thorough, but are not over aggressive or bad mannered like they are at the Sanctuary or Bagleys. The only small criticism I can make is that towards the end of the night the sound system was a bit too quiet in the hardcore room, but this wasn’t a serious problem.

It really would be great to see Slammin’ Vinyl use less of Bagleys and alternate more between using the Que Club and the Sanctuary for their future events.



Shouts go to MC Xtra C, Darren Rapid, Random Cousin, Storm + Whizzkid.

- Chedda (chedda@ush.net)