Uprising returned as a hard dance event two weeks ago after a few years away, and so this was their second event back. It was once again held at the spiritual home of Uprising, the Arches in Sheffield city centre. Uprising had previously had a massive following and in 1996 was described as "the best weekly hardcore night in the country". The last one was a wicked night and I was expecting good things. I arrived at the venue at about 10:30pm to find a queue outside. I queued up with a few mates and got to the door at about 10:40. I was given a pretty strict search by the security guard, and he shook the top of my combats quite roughly to see if he could dislodge anything that I shouldn't have had :) I got inside, paid the £10 entrance fee and dropped my coat in. I headed downstairs into the two stone arches that make up the main arena to see promoter Paul-O on the decks. He played his usual bouncy and hard techno sort of set, although the venue was still filling up at this point. I follow all sorts of dance music now, but my favourite DJ anywhere is undoubtedly Sharkey, and he was on next. Sharkey played exactly the kind of set that I'd expect from him, ie hard, dark and dirty, with a mixture of old and new freeform. The only bad thing was that he only played for half an hour, but at least when he finished I was revved up for the rest of the night. After Sharkey came Kenny Sharp, playing a trance set. Uprising (and Revolution also) are unusual as hardcore events in the amount of trance that they play on the night. Kenny Sharp has always played a style similar to that which you'd hear just down the road at Gatecrasher, but the crowd all love it. I like it because it means more variety on the night, and I've always been partial to a bit of trance. The sets had been arranged as fifty minutes each due to the 4am finish, and next up came Jon Doe on the decks. Before he came on I was wondering what he would play, and he chose a hard set which tended more towards trance than his Honeypot hard house stuff. It was a good set, and upped the tempo slightly from the set before it. One of the main guests on the night was Sy, who we were informed by one of the MCs was celebrating his birthday the day afterwards. I've felt recently that Sy is going quite stale as a DJ but he looks to be turning that around now. The main criticism he has encountered is that he has been playing too many old anthems and not enough newer stuff, but that was not the case here. Sy played a few older tunes like "Virtual Dreams", but in the main his set included plenty of newer tunes, especially Evolution ones. After Sy came resident CJ Glover and he chose to play a hard trance set on the night. He included tunes such as "Stttt.....Listen" by Jonah, and his scratching was wicked, although not quite as good as Sy's. :) The final set of the night was Uprising co-promoter Topgroove who also played hard trance. He played a few tunes that I hadn't heard before, but also dropped in the same tunes that he always plays. These included "Halloween Part 1" and "Escape". That's not to say that these aren't wicked tunes, but the sure fire way to ruin any tune is to play it so often that people get sick of it :( When this event finished at 4am I wanted to carry on to Insomniacz until midday, but sadly the people I was with weren't as hardcore (LOL ! – Editor) as me so I went back home instead. Uprising was once again pretty busy, and they really have made a wise move in leaving the Adelphi. The smaller second room that they have upstairs gives them the opportunity to experiment a bit, and I even saw the final DJ there playing some drum and bass. I really get the feeling that Uprising is on it's way to becoming big again. The line ups they have are always fresh, the emphasis is never just on happy hardcore as it is in other places, and they have a loyal crowd at their events. If they keep working at it then in six months or so it could be something really special. Here's hoping :) The next Uprising event is on Sat Oct 20th with Billy Bunter as the main guest. See you all there :) Shouts go out to Lee UHF, Mick Moss, Martin Space, Rich B, Part-E, Lang-E, Invader, Riddle, Kleiny, Fowler and Sharkey.
