Future Dance and Vibealite are two of the biggest hardcore promoters around so when they joined up to do this event it looked like being something special. Not only that but this was held at the Sanctuary, the first solely hardcore event to be held there since Hardcore Heaven in September 1999. I arrived at the Sanctuary at 8pm, one hour before the event was due to start. After much sitting around a queue slowly formed and the doors opened 15 minutes late. The searches were all done in the glass entrance section of the Sanctuary and I was searched by a woman who was reasonably friendly. The first thing that I noticed as I was going in was that the outdoor area seemed quite small, definitely smaller than it usually is there. As I walked into the main arena I was hit straight away by the production of it. The whole floor was carpetted which made a big difference, the stage was on the shortest wall nearest to the Fastrack warehouse (the best place to have it) and there were loads of banners with drawings on all round the arena. The stage set up was very good with a huge face and a pair of huge hands with a ball in between them, then the decks were located just behind the ball. This must have been 15-20 feet high and looked very impressive. On either side of the stage were two big video screens with really good visual displays and the stage had plenty of room for dancers as well as a couple of platforms. The first set of the night was Future Dance residents Vinal and Devotion. They did a good set of mostly freeform, playing the new "Crazy Styles" remix and their own "Say it again", although the arena was still filling up at this point. After them came Marc Smith and I didn't catch all of his set but he started off with the hardcore version of Push's "The Legacy" and also played "Identify the Beat" and "Boom n Pow". For these first two sets the sound system was too quiet and for this reason it was difficult to truly get into the music, but then it got turned up to a loud enough level after this. There were a few other occasions after this where it again went too quiet for short spells, but on the whole it was fine for the rest of the night. The next set was Scott Brown and he played "Elysium +", his version of Kosheen's "Catch" and a nu-style tune with the vocals from "Zombie" by the Cranberries. He also played a couple of newer nu-style tunes with a really dark feel and I enjoyed them. Next up was Stu Allen who seems to have a huge following in the north. His set was all classics from at least four years back, with him playing "People's Party", "Cloudy Daze", the Kaos version of "Hold me now", "6 days on the run" and "Wonderful Days" by Charly Lownoise and Mental Theo. At 1am came Brisk and he played plenty of nu-style including one tune with resung vocals from a Bryan Adams tune, as well as the new "Eye Opener" remix. It was around this time that the BMX performer came on stage. He was a former world bunny hop champion who got two volunteers to lie completely motionless on the stage with a gap between them and he then hopped over them back and forth. That's the kind of stage performer all raves should have. :) After Brisk was the Raverbaby Hixxy and he played a fair amount of stuff I hadn't heard before. Much of it had a quite nice trance edge but I thought the kickdrums seemed a bit weak in comparison to the other hardcore sets on the night. The set that I really wanted to see was Kevin Energy and Sharkey back to back and they came next. They played lots of new stuff and the set was hard, getting my vote for set of the night. The penultimate set was Sy but I didn't catch much of this set. I heard him play "Ghetto Blaster" by Kaos and the "Catch" tune from Kosheen and of course there was plenty of scratching from him and MC Storm. For the last set of the night I had planned to see Nicky Blackmarket in the upstairs old skool room as I hadn't been in there all night. I got in there at 5am and saw Vibes play for 15 minutes then Devotion came on so Blackmarket must have swapped with someone, cancelled or not turned up. I then decided to see Kaos's set instead. He played a hard and banging set which included the wicked "Pickle" tune with samples from Human Traffic. The best thing about this night was undoubtedly the production. Empress Stah was back and she did two shows on stage. In the first one she pierced her ears with long strips of elastic and then tied the strips to the stage structure, then she pierced her chest with needles. The best performance was the second one though where she was actually swinging on a trapeze (yes a trapeze) high above the stage. Along with the BMX stuntman this made incredible stage performances and there were also people in stormtrooper costumes and predator robots on stilts. The arena was well done out and they'd obviously spent a lot of money doing this. The atmosphere was good but sadly the attendance was a bit low, with the sanctuary looking around half full. The main criticism I have is that the flyer said there would be a funfair and bouncy castles but neither of these were there. Things should not be advertised on a flyer if they are not going to be delivered. The music and atmosphere were both good and I hope the slightly low turnout doesn't discourage Future Dance and Vibealite from doing another one of these events. If they do another then I will certainly be there. See you all here for Dreamscape on Sept 14th. :) Shouts to Lee UHF, Rich B, Part-E, Nicky Technohead, Pski, Little Miss Hyper, Buzz, Allan McGrath, Voltage, Paul USH, Paul Compulsion, Erica, Number 2301, SD, Andy M, Davespice, Ravegirl, Astraboy, Phick, The Fearless Potfish, Tombola, Sawyerbean, Thumpa, Wildcard, Cris E Manic, Uplift, Desire, Joe, Teknobabe, Teknoraver, Benson and all the other UK Scene crew, Beth, Toby and Paul Cypher, Tony Resonance, Matsui, Andy Freestyle, Phil Friction, Caine, Immz, Raz Power, Doc-E, Reepa, Scottie, Stix, Icekold, Vicki, Dusty Vixen, Stormtrooper, Casper, Rizla Dizla, Mayhem, MC Storm, MC Whizzkid, Energy and Sharkey.
