The last time that Vibealite and North were here together at The Emporium was two months previous to this at the end of January. The Emporium is a superclub venue, home to the massive trance night Passion and the monthly hard house night Storm. The event started at 8pm but I arrived here at around 9:30 and there was a relatively small queue outside. I thought the bouncers on the door seemed a little unfriendly but over the course of the night there were no problems with them. After a reasonable search I paid my £12 entrance fee and headed into the venue. The first thing that I noticed was the general production in the main arena which was pretty impressive. This was where the hardcore was located, and for this event the DJ had been moved back into the booth at the side of the room, as opposed to the deck setup on the far wall that Vibealite had created for the previous event. This time round there weren’t any dance platforms in the middle of the dancefloor, but noticeably more effort had been put into the lighting. There was a smoke machine which filled the dancefloor and then strobes to give a white smoke effect, as well as other lights and video screens. The main arena sound system was booming, definitely louder than the majority of sound systems you get at hardcore events. All in all it was real superclub standard production. Near the back of the main room up some stairs was the Vibealite merchandise stall selling lots of things including tape packs, and then there was also an instant photograph stand next to this. Since the last Vibealite and North event here the main arena mens toilets (which had flooded then at 1am) had been refurbished so these were now much nicer and cleaner. Next to one side of the main arena was a large chillout room which was fully lit and had lots of seats in. The North room was located in the second “Red room”, and this room wasn’t that much smaller than the main arena. All around the edge of this room are stepped dance levels so that the dancefloor is at a lower level than the rest of the room. In the middle of the dancefloor was a big dance platform and then there was a bar at the back of the room. Over the course of the night this room was definitely busier than it had been last time, although it didn’t have the same kind of production that the Vibealite main arena had. I started off by seeing the second half of Breeze’s set in the main room along with MCs Smiley and then Storm. He played the “Turn up the Music” and “Pretty Green Eyes” remixes, the new remix combining “Future Set” and “You’re Shining” and a hardcore version of the big chart euro-trance tune “The Way” by Divine Inspiration. After him at 10pm came Sharkey and Kevin Energy playing a back to back set for ninety minutes. This was absolutely ferocious, with hard, driving freeform the whole way through. They played a lot of new stuff like “Unlock the Brain”, “Mind Control”, “The Deviant”, the new “Pilgrim” remix and a new tune using the strings from “Bitter Sweet Symphony” as well as plenty of tunes I hadn’t heard before. Next up was Marc Smith along with Whizzkid and Storm together, and he started off with the famous Martin Luther King “I have a dream” sample he’s used a few times before. He then went on to play the new “Crazy Styles” remix, “Terrabeat” with Sharkey on the vocals and “Party Zone”. The second back to back set of the night came next with Brisk and Scott Brown, also playing for ninety minutes. I only caught the first half an hour of this though, which was mainly Evolution tunes like “Commence”, “Elysium Plus” and “Definition of a Bad Boy”. For the penultimate set I went into the North room for the first time during the night to see The Producer play. Sharkey was on the mic for the first part of this set and Producer played a set which started off quite slow at first. It got progressively faster as the set went on though, and was an interesting set which was quite twisted and different in parts. The last set of the night was Stu Allen along with Vibealite resident MC Peta Pan. Every time I’ve ever seen him play out he’s always played a set of older classics so I knew what to expect here. Sure enough he did this again, playing some huge older tunes like “Cloudy Daze”, “Let’s Fly” by Breeze, “Wonderful Days”, “Love U More” and “Now is the Time”. After his “one more” tune he managed to stick on yet another one which was “Forever Young” by Jimmy J to finish the night off with. I enjoyed the last event that Vibealite and North did here but overall I felt that this one was an improvement on that. The thing I liked best about here was the production, especially in the main arena, with the smoke machine, strobes and of course the booming sound system. The hardcore lineup was well varied, more so than many other events, and even though I didn’t go in the North room much it was always busy whenever I walked through it. My favourite set of the night was Sharkey and Energy, although I thought that Marc Smith was good as well. The atmosphere on the night was friendly with no attitude or trouble, and the turnout seemed slightly higher than at the last one (perhaps around a hundred or so more). The Emporium itself is a really nice venue, much nicer and better laid out than your average warehouse style venue. The fact that it plays host to big club nights like Passion means that you can get the kind of venue production that there was here. I didn’t really have any criticisms of the night apart from that there was no food on sale, even some cold stuff like chocolate would have been nice. :) It would be great to see this event get an all night licence, because good as it is, 3am is still really only half a night’s raving. It would also be good if the third room of The Emporium could be used for an extra arena, ie old skool or hard house, but I guess that’s something for the future. :) Shouts to Denno, Bex, Scottie, Lee UHF, Leanne and her boyfriend, James and Charlie Kitten, HB and Sweetstar, Caine, Joe@UK Scene, Scott Majestik, Andy Freestyle, Milligan, Bedroom Raver, Ted Pornstar, Nicky Technohead, Pski, Becki, Here’s Dead Johnny, Mr Casey, Adam and his mates, Phil Friction, MC Whizzkid, MC Storm and Sarah, Breeze, Kevin Energy and Sharkey.
