Vibealite and North once again joined forces here to put on another event at The Emporium in Coalville, after their first one last October. The Emporium is a well known superclub venue which is home to the massive trance night Passion and the hard house night Storm. I got there just before the 8pm start and the doors opened right on time. I was very surprised though when the security guard initially told me that I wasn’t able to come in as I was wearing a Liverpool football shirt. I argued that this was a hardcore night though with no dress code, and he then changed his mind and let me in. This must have been the case from then on as later on there were several people inside also wearing football shirts. Can we have a bit more communication with the door staff please Vibealite and North? J I wasn’t given a search as I went in and I paid the 12 pound entrance fee then headed inside. The Emporium is a nice venue which is well laid out and the production there is very good. The main arena was the Vibealite hardcore room, and here the DJ box had been moved to a raised level at the back of the room, as opposed to the booth at the side where it was before. The MCs were located in this booth and there were plenty of dance platforms at the edges and a few in the centre of the room. The sound system was good and there were Vibealite banners as well as a few video projection screens in the room. The North arena was in the second room although this wasn’t that much smaller than the main room. This room has a kind of submerged dance floor with a slight raised level on steps around the edges, and had a couple of dance platforms in the middle of the dancefloor. The first set of the night was UHF in here and he played a thumping hardstyle set which included his own “New City”. The funniest moment of the night was when Mark EG arrived at the DJ box in the North room only to be told that he was in completely the wrong room. It was then announced over the mike that he was in the wrong room, to loud cheers from the crowd. Mark EG was next in the main arena and he played a good mixture of hard trance and hard style, including “The Speed” by The Crow. The next set I saw was Ribbz in the North room and I really enjoyed this set. He played a really deep and groovy techno set which was very layered and interesting to listen to. Following him in the main room came Brisk and Scott Brown playing a back to back set for two hours. They played quite a lot of new stuff as well as “Gang bang society”, “Chase”, “Elysium Plus”, “Unlock your brain” and “Synthetic Dreams”. At 1am in the main room it was Hixxy and he started off with a brand new remix of “Pretty Green Eyes” by Force and Styles. For the first half of the set he played new stuff and then suddenly dropped in the anthems “You’re Mine” and “All Systems Go”. He then played the hardcore “Terminator” theme tune and finished off with his new version of “Bullet in the Gun” by Planet Perfecto. The final set of the night was Sy along with MC Storm and they played their usual high quality hardcore set with loads of scratching. This included the “Turn up the music” remix, the Scott Brown remix of “You’re Shining”, “Let the beat commence” and a brand new rip of the massive trance tune “For an Angel” by Paul Van Dyk. They then stopped the music and played Quosh tune “Just play it Loud” as their last tune, but then in true hardcore style played yet another one which was “Like an Angel” by Qtex. Overall this was a pretty good night in what is a really nice venue. The production the venue alone has is impressive, but then a bit extra was added on top of this, especially in the main Vibealite arena. The music was all good with a lot of fresh stuff played, and it was great to have the choice between two quality arenas of hardcore and techno. I thought that Sy just beat Ribbz and Mark EG to the set of the night. The atmosphere was good and the event had obviously attracted many clubbers and the more cyber crowd. One thing I did notice though was that there were more people sitting around not dancing than there usually are at hardcore raves. The football shirts thing was slightly frustrating but the main criticism of the night for me was that the toilets in the main arena flooded and had to be closed at 1:30am. The toilets in the North second arena had the water taps turned off, so after 1:30 there was no water supply for bottle refills. A 6am finish would be a big improvement as opposed to 3am, and it would also be great to see these two promoters use the third arena the Emporium has as possibly an old skool or hard house arena. On the whole it was a quality night all round and I will definitely be at the next one here which is on March 28th. Shouts to Lee UHF and Steph, Number 2301, happythoughts, Lang-E, a very pissed Part-E, Joe UK Scene, Jake Nicholls and Sam, Nicky Technohead, Matt Technohead, Denno and Bex, Phil Friction, Martin, Obsessive Gurner and her cyber Barbie, Taff, Gaz, John, Pinhead, Paul Draycott, Hixxy, MC Whizzkid and MC Storm.
