I’d never been here before and had only vaguely heard of this event, but I went here on the recommendation of a mate who is at Leeds University. I love going to new events and meeting new people, so I thought it was only natural to give this night a try. I got the train over from Sheffield, nipped into my mate’s student union and then we got to the venue at about 11pm. I didn’t really get searched and the people taking the money were all very friendly, wishing everyone a good night as they went in. The venue is normally just a function hall, and was therefore not built as a dance venue. The promoters had worked hard on the decor though, filling the room with UV banners, a green laser that filled the main room, and a mini stage for the DJ with a huge speaker stack at either side of it. The thing that I most liked about this night was the range of people that it seemed to attract. There were cyberkids, students, “clubby” types, standard ravers in combats/tracky bottoms and trainers, and some psychaedelic type of people. There was one bloke in there who must have been at least 60 and he had a bald head and a big white bushy beard. He looked as if he was enjoying himself so fair play to him. There was also a girl who had two sticks with multi coloured pieces of fabric attached to them and she was waving them around with her arms in time to the music. First set was resident DJ Ginge who was playing hard trance. He played a decent set and after him came one of the main guests for the night, DJ Chocci. He played a set of rock hard NRG with some dark samples in it and was on for an hour and a half altogether. After him came another resident who I didn’t quite catch the name of, and he played mainly hard house in his set. After him was due to be Clarkee, the other main guest for the night. Clarkee turned up about an hour late though, and I was told that the promoters gave him half his fee and then told him he was too late to play. He did leave looking a bit annoyed, but then I can understand the promoters standing their ground when he did turn up late. Final set of the night was DJ Ginge again. This was a set I was really looking forward to as I had been told that he was going to play some freeform in it. Ginge was on for about an hour and a half and he started off with some hard trance and hard house. About half an hour into it he moved into the freeform though, starting off with “Distornord”. He played the “Take me up” remix, “Free the brain” and a few Evolution tunes,including “Pilgrim” which he finished off with. His mixing was a bit suspect, including one tune that he badly clanged, but for me he still played the set of the night. There was also a drum and bass room there but I didn’t manage to find it, and I was enjoying the music in the main room so much that I wouldn’t have wanted to have left it anyway. Overall this was a smaller night which I really enjoyed. The crowd were very diverse and were all friendly. The music was hard and it was great to see hardcore and freeform included side by side with other styles such as hard trance and hard house. The promoters had done well by taking a small church hall kind of venue and cramming it with as much lighting and banners as they possibly could do. The night went on until 4:30 am, which isn’t quite all night but is still long enough to have a good night out of. If you’re in the Leeds area then give this a try as it’s the sort of smaller hard dance night that there should be in every single town or city in the country. The next one is on Friday November 30th and they have Mark EG and Dolphin playing. See you all there. Shouts go out to Michelle, Allan McGrath and all his mates.
