Bionic is an event ran by Cally (one half of the duo Cally and Juice) and up and coming DJ Brian M. It has been described by some as “the best allnighter in Wales” and has even won an award for it. I’d been meaning to come here for quite a while, but this was the first time that I’d managed to make it. It is held at The Emporium, which is located in Atlantic Wharf, a leisure park a few miles outside of Cardiff city centre. I arrived at the venue at about 9:40pm and there was already a queue outside. The night was due to start at 10pm and the doors opened about ten minutes after that. The security were searching some people but not everyone, and I went straight in without a search. On the night the security seemed to be fine, and didn’t go over the top. The entrance to the Emporium is on the ground floor level and then the actual club is upstairs. The club has two arenas, both of which are large and of similar size to each other. In terms of the actual décor itself the club is very much a new Ritzys style venue in that it is well laid out and completely carpeted apart from the dancefloors. In arena one there was a diner selling hot food and this also sold glowsticks, which a lot of people were buying. One nice touch on the night was in the toilets, which had speakers playing the music in live from one of the two arenas so you’d didn’t have to miss it. On the night arena one was the main arena, playing hard dance. This was in conjunction with the Positiva record label 10th birthday tour so next to the decks were two huge Positiva inflatables. On either side of the decks were two raised metal platforms and on each of these were dancers in luminous yellow outfits. There was also a stage in front of the decks for other dancers and an MC. This MC was Shocker and the MCing in the main arena was sensibly kept very minimal on the night, just introducing DJs on and sending them off at the end of their sets. The sound system in this arena was loud and clear, and the lighting was good with strobes and lasers. Arena two was a classics arena and this played a mixture of old skool hardcore, old jungle and classic 96-98 happy hardcore. This was quieter on the night than arena one but did get reasonably full at some points. The arena two sound system was also good and next to the decks here was a large white sheet which images were projected onto. The first set of the night in the main arena was rising hard dance star James Lawson. There was to be no warm up here as his set was hard right from the offset, and he played some good tunes that also included the new hard house rip of “Touch me” by Rui Da Silva. Following him came co-promoter Brian M. The club filled up gradually from the 10pm opening time and by about halfway through this set at 11:30 everyone had arrived. Brian M played a set which included “Red Snapper”, “Freedom” by Dave Holmes, the new hardstyle tune “Mind Controller” and “99.9” by Organ Donors. He then finished off with the anthem “Dreams” by Miss Shiva (my favourite EVER trance tune). The theme of this night was “International Mayhem” as they had booked a few big international DJs. The first of these was Holland’s Don Diablo and he came next at midnight. His set was very different from the two that had gone before as he played it varied and quite experimental at times. Some of it was techy, some with a punk influence and all of it interesting to listen to. The set included the hard trance rip of “Insomnia” by Faithless, a bizarre tune which had a punk style reworking of the chorus from “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen, and the new Eminem sampling “Nobody Listens to Techno” tune. His set was for an hour and a half but the last half an hour clashed with DJ Sy in the second room so I had to miss it. Sy was with his usual partner MC Storm and they played a classic old skool hardcore set. They started off with “Out of Space” by The Prodigy and then went on to play some massive old tunes like “DJs Unite Vol 1”, “In Complete Darkness” and “6 Days” by Jimmy J. It was then back to the main arena for what was a lineup change. The main headlining international DJ had been Japan’s Yoji Biomehanika but he was ill and wary about the SARS virus so had to cancel the booking. At short notice though the promoters had managed to convince BK to give up his weekend off and replace him though so all was good. BK played to what was now a very busy main arena, playing the “We Come One” rip, the original version of his own “Badass”, a rip of “You’re Not Alone” by Olive, “Do Not Attempt” and the hard house rip of “At Night” by Shakedown. He then finished off with the massive new “Hostile” by Paul Glazby and his own remix of Tony De Vit’s “I Don’t Care” as his last two tunes. Next up came resident DJ duo Cally and Juice. As soon as they came on they got a great reaction from the crowd and it was obvious to see that these two are crowd favourites here. They turned up the tempo after BK (who by no means played a light set himself), playing “We Will Survive” by The Warp Brothers and the hardstyle tune sampling “U Got the Love” by Candi Statton. At about 4am I went through to arena two where it was Tyrone Rose on the decks, and he was playing a happy hardcore classics set from roughly 96-98. Some people seemed quite bemused by this, whilst others were obviously loving it. He played the original “2001 Space Odyssey” tune, “Pretty Green Eyes”, “Killer” by Sy and Demo, the rips of “Rush Hour” and “Ride Like the Wind”, and the Kaos remix of “Hold me Now”. His mixing was more than a little dodgy but he was also obviously enjoying it as he was lifting his hands up and singing along with all the breakdowns. :) Arena two was scheduled to close at 5am so that everyone would spend the last hour in the main arena. The last set of the night in there was the final international DJ playing for ninety minutes, and this was none other than Scot Project. As always he had a big smile on his face as he played, dropping in his own tunes “Rock” and “Space” as well as “Hard Bass Extreme” by Ballistic and Beholder, and “Never End” by Yoji Biomehanika. The main arena was still quite busy when the 6am finish arrived. Overall I enjoyed this night a lot and I was glad that I travelled down for it. The music was very good with a big hard dance lineup in the main arena (even without Yoji Biomehanika) and then the classics DJs in arena two as well. I saw lots of good sets and even though Don Diablo impressed me a lot, he was just edged out of playing the set of the night by BK who played a stormer. The production here was very good, especially the main arena lighting and the dancers, and the sound in that arena was loud as all sound systems should be. The atmosphere on the night was also good and the crowd were all up for it. Lots of people were dancing, especially at the peak times of the night and they were friendly as well. The venue Evolution is very well laid out and not at all grotty or dirty. Evolution holds about 2000 people and on the night the venue seemed to be about three quarters full. The only possible fault I can make of the whole night is that I thought arena two would have worked better as an upfront hardcore room as opposed to classics. Perhaps this might be seen as treading on the toes of hardcore promoter Devastation though who also use this venue. The thing I liked most about this night though wasn’t that all the separate elements such as music, production, atmosphere etc were done well, it was the blend of these. Everything just seemed to fit together and the night worked very well as a whole. This is a very good hard dance event with lots of energy and there is nothing that you can really fault it on. Even if you don’t live that close to Cardiff it is still worth travelling to as this is a good night out. :) The next Bionic event is here on May 23rd when Bionic join up with Escape for the “Escape into the Park” launch party with Paul Van Dyk as the main guest, then there is also another one on June 6th. Shouts to babyraver, Andy, Brian M and MC Storm.
