Vibealite have had a really good year this year and this event was part two of their 9th birthday celebrations. It was held at The Street in Skegness. I arrived there about half an hour late to find a fair sized queue. It moved quite quickly though and I reached the front after about ten minutes. The security were friendly which is a rarity at raves these days. I was given a fairly thorough search and the guy chatted to me at the same time. The Street is a really cool venue, although I knew what to expect as I'd been there before. It gets its name from the fact that the interior of the club is done out as an actual street, with the "shops" at the sides being bars and the different music arenas. The hardcore arena was the biggest arena at the back of the club and this was well decorated with coloured banners, lasers and a raised platform in the middle. The sound system was fine but I thought the microphone was a little too loud in relation to the music. The hard house arena was in the main lobby part after the desk and searches, and this was the next biggest arena. The Tomorrows World hard trance arena was in a smaller room which was dark and had a UV light and some cool strobes. The final arena was the UK Scene up and coming arena which was located in a large bar. At the entrance to the club were signs informing the ravers that due to licensing problems the event would now finish at 2am instead of the 3am finish that was advertised. The first set I saw was Manchester lad Kaine playing in the hard trance arena. He did a good hard set, dropping in "Turntable Junky" by Schalldruck. Following him came UHF doing a two hour set. I missed parts of it but he dropped in some good tunes like "Feel the Drum" by Digital Guerilla and managed to play all four mixes of "Hardcore Will Never Die" in a row, as a kind of megamix. Halfway through the set I wandered off to the hardcore and found that it was Kevin Energy playing. Unfortunately he'd got delayed by traffic and road closures so only got to play for about twenty minutes. What he did manage to play was good though, including a brand new remix of "Pilgrim" that I hadn't heard before. He was accompanied by MC Storm and other MCs on the night were Whizzkid and Peta Pan. I caught the rest of UHF's set then went back to the hardcore arena to see Marc Smith play. He played his own "Boom n Pow" as well as "The Blue Room" and "Chase", but the set had to be interrupted to relay a message over the mic from the security. It named three people and asked them to report to reception as an emergency. The message was first read out by Whizzkid but when they hadn't got in touch after ten minutes the security made Marc Smith stop the tunes until they did. It was off for about ten minutes altogether, and this was because an alleged rape had happened. No-one seems to know if this was the case but it must have been a serious incident because the police entered the club shortly afterwards. Once the music had started back up again it was time for Marc Smith to finish so I went into the hard house arena. In there was new Tidy prodigy Guyver of the Riot Brothers, someone who I hadn't seen play out yet so I was looking forward to this set. As I entered the room he was playing the brilliant "Awakening" by Rank 1 and he did a set of hard trance monsters, including his own "Serious Sound" and "Flashback". After this had finished it was 1am so time for the final set of the night. This fell to Brisk and Scott Brown playing back to back. They started off with hardcore, including the new "Turn up the music" remix and played some nu-style gabba at the end including the wicked "Under Control". They managed to play 20 minutes over the altered 2am finish, and after playing the customary "one more tune" at the end they were ready to go but everyone stopped and made so much noise that they had to do yet another one after that. Overall this was a good event, especially the atmosphere which had a real "up-for-it" northern feel to it. The crowd were great, and of course the venue itself has to take some credit because its very distinctive and ideal for a rave. The music was good with Guyver getting my vote for set of the night, and the production was good, especially in the hardcore arena. The major downside was the finish time though. The advertised 3am finish would have been too early anyway, but with it being changed to 2am this was way too early. The hardcore room was a bit too hot as well. This was another quality event from Vibealite who are the best northern hardcore promoter at the moment. On NYE they are back at Fantasy Island and after the success of last NYE there I know that's where I'll be. Shouts to Lee UHF, Rich B, Lang-E, Charliieeee, Part-E, Denno, Nicky Technohead, Teknobabe and TeknoRaver, Dj Stride, Joe, Wendy + Wayne, Strike and all the other UK Scene crew, Kaine, Dave, Runna, Andy Freestyle, Kevin Energy, MC Whizzkid, MC Storm and Sarah.
