Well, what can I say? Arrived quite late for this event actually. Lord Peter and his missus got stuck in heavy Manchester traffic before coming to pick me up, and they then had to pick Caine up, not to mention having to find the venue, get to the bank and find the venue again which meant we had missed the first hour for sure. When we got there the first thing we noticed is how much the place (Old Corn Mill) looked like a pub, very strange. There was a fair sized queue outside the venue, which moved rather sluggishly, despite the fact that there were no door searches !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The lady in the cloakroom was also slow and we were losing valuable raving time. The cloakroom was in the hard house room and me and Lord Peter decided to try and find the hardcore room. We searched around, and then we found the old skool room, but we still wanted to find the hardcore room. We ended up in a wild goose chase before finally finding the hardcore room which was virtually hidden at the back of the venue. It must've taken us about half an hour to find. We noticed that we were actually in a tent on a car park! And it was quite difficult to move around because of how crowded it was (should get a bigger tent in future!). But alas, we managed to find a decent unoccupied space on the dancefloor (or should I say car-park) so we could release our energy. Hixxy was on the decks and it was quite evident that we had missed most of his set, so we had to make the most of what was left. Well, the guy never fails to entertain does he? His set included the awesome Castles In The Sky Remix, Freefall (I think) and 1 or 2 other unreleased Raver/Jelly Baby tunes. As was the case at Elation, he ended the set with older material. Some ravers would complain about this because they'd prefer him to play almost a full set of his new stuff, but I enjoyed it and if he did play more of his new tunes then I think that some of his sets would become a little bit too predictable. What makes him so good is that he never plays 2 sets which are the same. Storm was on the mic, and doing a good job of hyping up what is usually a fairly lazy northern crowd. The quality of the sound was good although I couldn't really hear the MCing clearly enough, and the lighting was good, but a bit minimal though. Next up was Scott Brown. His set wasn't really any different from his usual, consisting of 'Ice Kold', 'Roll The Track', 'Elysium', the dutch hardcore version of 'Stan' and a selection of newstyle gabber to finish. However he did play a couple of remixes I've never heard before, including a remix of Delerium's 'Silence' and a remix of an 80s pop ballad, called 'Turn Around', I think. Despite the unspontaneity of his set, it kept what was still a very busy dancefloor rocking and some ravers were blowing their whistles and horns to their hearts content. Passion: that's what I like to see at raves. The next DJ to play was Sy. He kicked off his set with an interesting tune, presumably something forthcoming on Quosh. He went on to play 'Rock With me One More Time', the 'Break of Dawn' Scott Brown remix as well as a number of other Evolution tunes. Some of the dead wood is definately vanishing from his sets now because he isn't playing 'Discoland', 'Like A Prayer' or 'Kick It' much at all now, and instead is showcasing more of his own material. Wotsee was on the mic at this point and indeed was on many occasions throughout the night. He did a good job of it, but like I said, I couldn't hear him all that clearly. After DJ Sy came DJ Demand. Again, he is a spinner whose sets have been a bit 'samey' over the past year, always playing sets which are very similar to Scott Brown's with his large selection of recent Evolution tunes and newstyle gabber towards the end, but he did make this particular set a little different. He started off by playing some quality upfront Next Generation/Blatant Beats tunes, as well as the forthcoming Raverbaby track 'Alternative', which I think is a super, super tune and for me it was the highlight of the night. During the course of Demand's set, people began to leave the tent but the more dedicated ravers stayed and I found that there was more room to dance. The final set came from Topgroove. I've never heard this guy play out before but I was almost certain he'd play hard-house/trance which he did. I don't think it's a good idea to have trance playing for the last hour in a hardcore room, especially when there's a seperate hard-house/trance room anyway. It's not that I don't like hard-house or trance, because they do work well as 'warm-up sets', but I like the night to end on a 'hardcore tip'. I took this hour as an oppurtunity to take a few short breaks, and see what was happening in the old skool room. Me and Caine went to check it out but as we made our way upstairs, we heard some REALLY OLD house playing (DJ Welly), so we decided to go back to the tent!!! Towards the end Topgroove pitched off his tunes, to make them more at hardcore's sort of speed and this encouraged me back on the dancefloor, which started to fill back up a bit more. I can't name any tunes in particular but they sounded interesting and I came to appreciate his set a bit more atowards the end. Despite the traditional 'one more, one more' requests of the punters at the end, no more tunes were played unfortunately. :o( After leaving the venue, stopping at Caine's house for a few hours, 2 train journies and 2 bus journies, and trying to stay awake to write some of this review I was absolutely shattered, but as always, I did enjoy myself. It's good that Compulsion have carried on with great spirit despite no longer being able to use Bowlers, even if the OCM (Old Corn Mill) does look like a large pub! They brought hardcore to a new, untried venue which is really important. Yes, there were a couple of little disadvantages: the poor queue management, the difficulties in actually finding the hardcore room and no hardcore for the last hour but as always, at the end of the day it's the atmosphere that really makes a night, no matter how many small disadvantages there may have been and like I said earlier, the atmosphere was the best I have yet seen at a northern event. So, who knows what Compulsion have up their sleeve next!? Shouts to: All of the promoters, DJs and MCs of the night, Lord Peter for his generous transport assistance and interesting questions, Emma, Caine and his mashed-up flatmates, Recoil, Alarm, Anton and Cedric and her boyfriend, that London guy with dark hair (forgot your name unfortunately m8), Paul Draycott and his smashing new Vibealite jacket, John Steel and anyone else who I forgot, or shook hands with me, or hugged me.
