TNT, now one year old and were celebrating their 1st birthday with a brilliant lineup. The Adelphi is a nice venue, which works well for a hardcore event. It has one main dancefloor with a stage at the front where the DJs and MCs were situated. The lighting was of high quality with a couple of lazers, alongside a good loud sound system providing the noise. The security on the night were a bit too overbearing though, and seemed to have an attitude about them. The strangest thing was that rule the Adelphi has about no bottles (glass or plastic) to be taken into the toilets. This stems back to the time when Insomniacz was here, and relates to the whole GHB thing. That simply isn’t an issue at hardcore events though, and Insomniacz hasn’t been here at the Adelphi since last year anyway. This rule could be got round by merely putting a bottle into your pocket, pulling your t-shirt over and just walking into the toilets with it. :) Hanging from the raised balcony section were big painted drapes that went right down to the floor (about eight feet high), and these went all round the dancefloor. These were very detailed and intricate designs that were also on the raised podium sections at the back of the dancefloor, all over the stage and from other raised sections. Overall the venue was noticeably different to how it had been in the for many other events in the past. A few more bodies could have been welcome through the door though. It was a shame because the atmosphere, production and music was spot on, just needed a few more people on the dancefloor to really get the party jumping. The night began at 9pm and the first set was Insomniacz regular Ian Barker, who played an upfront hard house set which included “Don’t Hold Back the Music” by Vinylgroover and Anne Savage’s new tune “Four Leaf Clover”. After them came Uprising favourites Riddler and Spinner playing a back to back set. This was mostly older bouncy techno like a cheeky INXS sampling tune, the instrumental version of “Jumpin Pumpin” and even a tune with vocals from “Bohemian Rhapsody” in. The lineup here was a bit special because it featured two back to back sets, both two hours each. These were a little different because they pitted together two pairs of DJs who had similar styles but had strangely never played back to back with each other before. The first of these pairs was Brisk and Sharkey, with a set that seemingly promised to be hard. They played lots of new stuff like “Party Zone”, the new “Pilgrim” remix, “50,000 Watts” and “I had a Dream”. Brisk managed to slip in a couple of older tunes and overall I thought the set sounded much more like Sharkey’s style than it did Brisk’s. The second back to back set came next, this one being Marc Smith and Devastate together. They started off with a few really different breakbeat tunes which sounded a lot like drum and bass, although with hardcore style breakdowns. They then went on to play an upfront set which included the “Crazy Styles” remix, “Beast of Hardcore”, “Crescendoes of Ecstasy”, the new “Pickle” on Go Mental and Riddler’s new tune which uses the vocals from “Sweet Harmony” The final set of the night was two of the three promoters Lang-E and Part-E playing back to back for an hour. They chose to play a classic happy hardcore set featuring some absolute anthems. These included “Devotion”, “Now is The Time”, the original “Steamtrain”, “Wonderland” and the Slipmatt remix of “Higher Love”. They also played “Rainbow Islands” and the supercheese “I Kiss Your Lips” by Tokyo Ghetto Pussy. They had played till a few minutes over then the venue management sportingly turned the main volume right down, so everybody went with no final tune of the night. :( Overall it was an enjoyable night. The promoters had certainly put a lot of time and effort into the night and the crowd who were there really appreciated that. Musically it was the two guest back to back sets which stood out, with Marc Smith and Devastate just edging it as the set of the night. A few more people through the door would have been really good to see, and that is the only real criticism of the night. Hopefully the promoters will continue with more events and also for more Sheffield ravers to start supporting their up and coming nights, irrespective of whether Natz, JD Walker and Marcus are MCing or not. Shouts to: Lang-E, Part-E, Rich B, Lee UHF and Katie, Sharkey (and his mum), Kenno, Thumpa, Clipper, Ronin, Riddler, Sam, Linz, Denno, Bex, Cyclone, Chrissy, Dan, Mikey B, Shox, Martin Space and Lynsey, Scott Majestik, Wotsee, Buzz, Andy Freestyle
