Uprising is a long running and well attended rave in Sheffield, now in it’s 9th year. The Adelphi was where they really made their name in years gone by and has been their home since they returned here last July. This event had a back to back theme with all the DJs on the night playing back to back sets. The night started at 9pm and I got here at about 9:30. As soon as I arrived it was obvious that the turnout was high as there was a big queue outside. It has to be said that the security didn’t organise the flow of this queue very well at all and it didn’t seem to move that fast. After about half an hour of queuing four police cars suddenly turned up and parked right outside the club doors. After discussions with the promoters and security they stopped for about ten minutes and then left, with seemingly no-one having any idea what they were actually there for. After another half an hour of queuing I got to the entrance at about 10:30. I wasn’t given a search and I headed into the venue. As I walked through the doors from the foyer into the main room I noticed straight away the production in the room. Across the front of the stage was a barrier (normally it is just open), and this barrier was covered with material made to look like a sheet of camouflaged leaves. On either side of the stage were two of the cloth artificial flame machines and there were more lasers and lights used than when I was last here in January. There were a few strobes above the stage and the production as a whole was a definite improvement from before. :) When I first walked in the room was quite busy, and this was coupled with an up for it atmosphere in there. As there were still plenty of people behind me in the queue, the venue finished filling up at about 11pm and after that it was very busy. The Adelphi holds about 7-800 people and this event surely must have been full to capacity as the venue was rammed out. This made moving around the venue a bit tricky and there wasn’t much room to dance at all, but there was a good atmosphere in there. Riddler and Spinner had played back to back for the first set of the night but I was still queuing up outside at that point. The first set that I saw therefore was the second half of former Uprising promoter Paul-O b2b Brisk. These played an older bouncy techno set including “F/uck my best friend”, “Don’t f/uck with a ruffneck”, “Jiiieeeehaaaa” and then the big vocal tunes “6 Days on the Run” and “Love U More”. Following them came Hooley and Holty playing back to back. These two played a bouncy old style hard house set that bizarrely started off with a rip of the “Inspector Gadget” theme tune. They then went on to play a tune with the lyrics from “Jump Around” by House of Pain and one of the remixes of the classic “Bits and Pieces” by Artemesia. The tunes were all the kind of offbeat basslines and stab style tunes from a few years back that you just don’t hear around any more, although their mixing was a bit dodgy at times. The original lineup had Sy and Unknown on but these had been swapped who Raverbaby duo Breeze and Styles who came on next at midnight. They started off with a sampled speech attacking music industry bosses for trying to “destroy” hardcore, the same sample Hixxy and Breeze both used at Slammin Vinyl recently. They then played a set that included “The 6th Gate”, “Connection” by UFO, the new “Power of Love” remix, “Ultimate High” by Stargazer and finished off with their own anthem “You’re Shining” The next set was promoter Topgroove playing back to back with former promoter Kenny Sharp but I headed off to check out the upstairs room instead. Usually this room at the Adelphi is just used as a VIP room for the DJs, so most of the time the venue just has the one room. Here it had been fitted with decks though and was used to host the DJ competition. The room was darkly lit and in there was a very powerful strobe, which really added to the effect in a small room such as this. It wasn’t that busy in there but compared to the main room downstairs there was acres of room to dance in. On the decks was Vorny and he played some banging hardstyle. The final set of the night was Wales’ Cally and Juice at 2am. As always they bought along with them their own MC Shocker but he was just given the first 20 minutes of the set on the mic before the Uprising resident MCs took over from him. Cally and Juice played a mixture of hard trance and hardstyle including a remix of Candi Statton’s “U got the Love” and were lively behind the decks, adding some scratching over the tunes. The room had emptied out a bit by this last hour but was still quite busy, as it had been so full earlier on. I had to leave at dead on 3am to get a taxi but I think they only played one tune over this time anyway. Uprising have got such a regular and dedicated following that their events always do well, but this was the busiest that I’ve ever seen The Adelphi. This seemed to drive the atmosphere on as the crowd were all well up for it on the dancefloor. The promoter had made a noticeable extra effort with the production, which was better than before, and I thought that the stage looked much better. In terms of the music Breeze and Styles just edged it as the set of the night for me, although Cally and Juice also played a good set at the end. I have to admit that I’m not a fan of the MCs here but the crowd obviously love them and they form a big part of this event. I didn’t see any trouble on the night and it was great to see all the regular faces enjoying themselves. One of the criticisms I had was the sound system which was quite changeable over the course of the night. For Brisk and Paul-O it was booming, for the next set it was too quiet and then for Breeze and Styles it was still too quiet, and cut out a few times so that just the DJ monitors were playing. Then for the next two sets it was loud again up until the end of the night. The other was the queuing system which wasn’t very organised and didn’t get people into the venue quick enough. The security themselves were fine though and were chatting to lots of people in the queue outside. Overall a good night, most of all a very busy night, and Uprising must surely be pleased with how this went. This is very much a local event with a dedicated crowd who are well into the night. For an event that is on roughly once every three weeks it’s always busy and I can’t see how it will continue to be anything other than that in the future. The next Uprising events are here on May 10th in conjunction with Lincs event Quake, then on bank holiday Sunday May 25th is a big afternoon/evening joint event in conjunction with the other big local promoter Dizstruxshon. Shouts to Lee UHF, Andy Freestyle, Katie, Jake and Sam, Linz, Martin Space and Lynsey, Jonesy, Hirsti and his mate, C-5 and Ben Uprising, Kleiny, Bombjack and Spinner and Breeze.
