North’s third event back here at The Void was the first part of their 6th birthday celebrations, with the second part coming next month. These two events had been split up into the style of North’s two different music arenas, Technology and Radical. This first part was the Technology night, made up of the hard trance and hardstyle regularly played at North. The event started at 9pm and I arrived here at about 9:45. The venue is right in the centre of Stoke on Trent, next to The Potteries shopping centre, and there is a car park right opposite the venue. When I arrived there was no virtually no queue at the door so I headed straight in. I was searched by a genuinely friendly security guard who was making a real effort to chat with people, often not the case with nightclub security in general. I headed into the venue, dropped my coat off and went to check it out. Normally at North events Technology is located in the second room, but here it was in the much larger main room downstairs. The second room seemed to be playing purist techno whenever I went through there, although I was in the main room for the majority of the night. As usual here the main room sound system was booming, and maybe it was due to no hardcore techno being played, but it didn’t seem to distort slightly like it had the last few times I’d been here. Next to the DJ box were strobes, there was a dance platform in the middle of the room, and there were also projection screens showing visuals and live footage of the DJ behind the decks. As always the North merchandise stall was located between the two arenas, selling a range of tape packs from previous North events. The first set of the night was Mark EG in the main arena, but as I had got there a bit late I only caught his last couple of tunes. These were his in usual acid techno style and at the end he was giving away free CDs from behind the decks to a large crowd of eager hands. Following them came North residents Dolphin and Vortex playing a back to back set along with MC Eazy. This was hard trance but much harder than normal, almost as if they were trying to satisfy the hardcore techno fans as well, and it included UHF’s new tune “New City”. Following them came another North resident, and this time it was M Zone along with Ikon on the mic. His set was also harder than he’d normally play, full of really pounding hardstyle such as a tune from the Analogic Disturbance EP, and the hardstyle rip of “Insomnia” by Faithless. Next up it was Vortex and Dolphin again, this time joined by The Producer for a triple back to back set. I was curious to see what they’d play, and it turned out to be a techno set. I enjoyed it a lot as I’m a techno fan, but in truth it didn’t seem to go down that well with the rest of the crowd. The problem was that guest DJs Mill and Manuel T from Italy were taken from the lineup for some reason so these three ended up playing for two hours, which was maybe an hour too long. The final set of the night was The Crow direct from Germany. He started off with his remix of “Hallucination Generation” followed by “Turntable Junky”, then went on to play Uberdruck tunes “The Speed” and “Bloody Slut” as well as the Uberdruck remix of Rayden’s “I Know Ur Waiting”. He managed to sneak in an extra ten minutes after the 4am finish, but then was told to stop so he didn’t get to play a “one more” tune. This bought to an end a decent night to mark the first part of North’s 6th birthday. The turnout was about the same as their last event here in February, maybe slightly less, and still quieter than their really busy Christmas event. The atmosphere was good with no attitude or trouble, and the production in the main arena was also good. I liked all of the sets that I heard, although for me the set of the night was definitely M Zone’s. There were no real criticisms of the night for me. One of the toilets in the upstairs gents blocked and partly flooded the toilet area, but then rave toilets aren’t renowned for being spotless are they? The second part of North’s 6th birthday celebrations falls on April 18th (Good Friday) and this is a special Radical night focusing on the hardcore techno and gabber played here. Big hitting overseas DJs Promo, Manu Le Malin and Drokz join all the regulars then for a night which is on an extra hour till 5am. There are a few North regulars I know who seemed to have stayed away from here because of the lack of hardcore techno, so perhaps this is a sign that the 6th birthday part 2 could be busy. :) Shouts to Lee UHF, Steph, Linz, Pski, Sandy, Martin, babyraver and Andy, Mick and Mike Heath.
