After their last event at SEOne United Dance returned to their former home Bagleys for another event. This event had two separate arenas of drum and bass as well as hardcore, old skool and garage, so had a pretty big lineup. Bagleys is a three level warehouse about five minutes walk from Kings Cross station and I got there just after the scheduled 10pm start time. The doors opened 15 minutes late and there was quite a big queue outside, but I had a credit card collection so was in the shorter queue. It took me about ten minutes queuing to reach the search point and I was given a really thorough search by a security guard. He made a point of checking that my concealed hood in my coat collar was actually a hood, and felt all the way inside my trainers. I was inside for about 10:30 and the complex was relatively quiet at this point. I dropped my coat off in the cloakroom in its usual place in arena three, then went to check out the venue. The two drum and bass arenas were in the first two arenas, although the music didn’t start in arena two till midnight. After about 11pm the first drum and bass arena was really full all night, so this more than justified United Dance putting on the two arenas. In the second arena were a couple of video screens which showed computer generated visuals and at times live footage of the DJ and MC in arena one, which I thought was a really good idea. The hardcore was located in arena three and the layout in here was quite good, with a few banners, some decorations around the DJ box and a big dance platform in the middle of the room. As always there was the burger van in the large outside section that Bagleys has, as well as the merchandise stall and another separate stall in the hardcore arena. The first set I saw was Cris E Manic in the hardcore room along with MC Marley. She played a mixture of older breakbeat tunes and some Raw Elements releases such as “Dawn of Creation by Uplift and UFO. Unfortunately there were problems with the sound system though which resulted in the volume suddenly being cut to quite a low level on at least four occasions during her set. I then headed into arena one to see Bad Company, but just finishing off was Kenny Ken. For his last tune he played a wicked tune I hadn’t heard before which featured lots of samples from September 11th, including the infamous “We will find them, we will smoke them out their holes” line from George W Bush. Bad Company then started off with “Mo’ Fire” and had MC Navigator on stage with them singing along to it. They then played a really good set of dark drum and bass including the new remix of Dillinja’s “Twist Em Out”, and as the music hadn’t yet started in arena two the arena was pretty full. After them I headed back into the hardcore room to see Hixxy along with MC Storm. He played his versions of Ferry Corsten’s “Punk” and Planet Perfecto’s “Bullet in the Gun”, his “Set You Free” remix, Uberdruck’s “Bloody Slut” timestretched and “Fire in the Sky”. For the next set I wanted to see Zinc in arena one as he is one of my favourite drum and bass DJs. When I got there the arena was really full though with literally no room to dance anywhere, so I only stopped in there for about ten minutes. The next set I saw was Breeze in the hardcore arena with MC Storm. He played a lot of new stuff including a brand new Raverbaby style remix of the classic “Can’t Stop Ravin” and also “Connections” by UFO. I then headed into arena two where it was Mampi Swift on the decks, and he played a lot of good stuff including the new “Twist em Out” remix, “Pandora’s box” and “Midnight” by Future Cut. The thing that makes Mampi Swift stand out as a DJ is that he cuts up the tunes a lot and does long mixes often halfway through tunes, so he is always interesting to listen to. Following him was Andy C but he arrived twenty minutes late so Mampi Swift ended up playing over to cover for him. Andy C played a really good set of his trademark fast drum and bass including “How Dare You” by Dillinja and he got everybody brocking out. I then headed into arena one to see my favourite drum and bass MC Shabba D on the mic for ten minutes as sadly he was only doing the last hour. For the final set of the night I saw Sy in the hardcore arena and unusually he was without MC Storm, as it was Odyssey on the mic instead. Sy started off with his new version of the classic old skool track “Sweet Harmony” then went on to play “Commence”, “Black magic bad magic” and a new rip of Paul Van Dyk’s “For an Angel”. Halfway through the set I went and fetched my coat, which took about fifteen minutes of queuing, and I watched possibly the rattiest cloakroom attendant I’ve ever seen really get annoyed with the ravers collecting their coats. Usually Sy is always good for managing to fit a few more tracks in after the finish time, but here the security were quite firm on this so he had to stop at just before 6am. Just as I was leaving I noticed that the music was still playing in arena two, so I went in there for Nicky Blackmarket’s last tune to finish the night off. Overall this was a good event and I loved the mixture of hardcore and drum and bass that they had. The hardcore arena was fairly busy all night and the music was good with Sy playing my favourite set in there. The only criticism I have of this arena was the sound system, which kept cutting out in Cris E Manic’s set and the bass was quite badly distorting when Hixxy was on. After this it seemed to have been pretty much sorted out, but up until this point it just wasn’t good enough. I really enjoyed the drum and bass here, especially the quality lineup that the two arenas of it enabled them to have. It was very much the London style MC-orientated drum and bass, with crowd favourites Shabba D, Fatman D and IC3 getting a great reaction from the ravers there. Andy C was good but the set of the night for me came from Bad Company, who played a wicked jump-up style set that was just pure darkness. The atmosphere there was somewhere in the middle by drum and bass standards. I didn’t see any attitude and although I’ve been to friendlier events than this I’ve also been to much moodier ones. As well as the hardcore I think the two drum and bass arenas worked really well here, and I would love to come to another United Dance event soon. A date hasn’t been confirmed for the next one yet but in the mean time there is Hardcore Heaven on Feb 8th and Slammin Vinyl on April 5th, both at the sanctuary. See you all there. Shouts to Smithers, James and Charlie Kitten, HB and Sweetstar, Ponder, Mitzi, Tenz, Astraboy, Grob, Vicky, Cris E Manic, Desire, Uplift, Tony Resonance, Frog and Tom, Andy the birkenheader, Glenda, Breeze, Hixxy, MC Whizzkid, MC Storm and Sarah.
