This weekend I decided to have the hardest weekend of my life. It was August bank holiday weekend and there were loads of events on, I decided to see how many I could attend and still be alive by the end of it. In the end I settled for the following order of events: Friday night: Ravenation at the Lighthouse in London, Saturday night: Tribal Gathering at an undisclosed location in Manchester, Sunday: Day off, Monday: Dancenation in Newport, wales. Heres what happened.... Ravenation is the first event ever to have the guts to put on a hardcore event at the lighthouse. This first class venue, coupled with a top notch old skool lineup with some cracking PA’s from the likes of Baby D and the legendary Altern8, together with most of the top names in hardcore saw me and a good proportion of my mates head down to east london after work on Friday. After a few (well more than a few) pints at the Peacock, the drunken raver entourage made its way to the venue. Situated on the banks of the Thames, the Lighthouse is exactly what it says it is, Londons last lighthouse opposite the Millenium Dome and straddled by two big warehouses which formed arenas 1 and 2. Outside was a large courtyard with several fairground rides, burger vans and merchandise stall. Oh and a police river launch moored outside. had a bit of fun with the plod on board, asking them to turn on their lights etc, but they were mostly good natured and left a short while later. Thereafter I went into the hardcore arena to sample what I was there for. On the decks was Ponder and HB going back to back for two glorious hours, accompanied by MC Elmo. They were warming up the night nicely, playing a mixture of their own tracks and tunes from other labels. One tune I do remember them playing was “Liberation” I was rushing my tiny little mind off to that one, I can tell you. As Paul and Mark finished off, the venue was getting busier and busier. I overheard one of the bouncers saying that 700 tickets had been sold, and all in I think there were about 1000 people in the venue, which is about right. The place was not as full as it could have been, but Ravenation is still in its first couple of events so it’s a little unrealistic to expect the night to ram out to capacity so soon. Following Ponder and HB, was a triple Raverbaby set from Styles, Hixxy and Breeze, each playing one hour each. Of the three, I think Hixxy played the best set, if nothing else than for playing that remix of “Injected with a poision”. Mind you, I’m a little biased as I love that tune to bits In those three hours, Whizzkid was on the mic. Gotta mention Whizzkid at this point as he was on top, top form that night. Going for near on 3 hours non stop, he was surrounded by ravers in front of the DJ booth, giving it everything he had and never fading once until he handed over Storm for Scott Browns set. Meanwhile, in the Old Skool arch, similar things were going on. Blackmarket played a different set to the norm, an 89 set which went down really well. I only caught a little bit of it and he was playing a mixture of anthems and lesser known tunes. Don’t ask me to name them though The downside to this arena was the fact that Blackmarket was pretty much the only DJ to buck the trend and do something a little bit different. The rest of the DJs played pretty much wall to wall anthems which was disappointing to say the least. No cheese from Vinyltrixta which I was well looking forward to , nothing especially different about Njoi’s set either, would have liked to had heard them play their remix of “Little bird” but no joy. To couple that, I was out of the arena and missed Baby D’s PA and because of that I was determined not to miss Altern8’s PA, but alas they did not show up. On the whole the Old Skool arena was a little bit of a letdown. At their first event at Heaven, the DJs were allowed a little more freedom and the tunes were a little more diverse, this time there was little or no innovation (no pun intended) and the event was poorer for it. The hardcore arena made up for any shortcomings of the oldskool arena though. I would like to say how much I liked Scott Brown’s and Seduction’s sets, but I only got glimpses of them. The bits and pieces I saw were highly enjoyable though. Storm was having it on the mic as well, nice to see him mixing it with the ravers as well as up on the DJ Stand. Nice one mate Final set of the night was down to Uplift, Storm was replaced with MC Wildcard and together the two of them set about finishing off the night in style. Unfortunately I cant remember any of the tunes played, but as I have said before, that is no bad thing. Things I liked: Hardcore at the lighthouse! Oh gosh! Worth the entrance fee in itself, Friendly security, Top notch lineup, Quite the nicest bogs I’ve ever had the pleasure of dropping my guts into. Just the right blend of MCs and music. Neither lacking or intruding. Perfect. Things I liked less: Missing the Baby D PA. RRRR! Altern8 not showing, No imagination with the oldskool room tune selection. On the whole it was a good event. Its nice to see a new promoter, especially someone like Mickey Finn having the courage to put money into the hardcore scene when there is no guarantee of a return. This event, while not perfect, was very enjoyable and hopefully will see hardcore coming back to the lighthouse soon again. I’ll be first in the queue when it is. Shouts to: Crystal, Grob, Paul USH, Mikey B, Alan_m, Paul Zykotic, Barticle, TomU4EA & his missus, Martin, Doc-e, HB, Ponder, Uplift, MC Wildcard, MC Whizzkid, MC Storm, Sorcerer, MC Kans, James F, Charlie Kitten, Nuclearaver, Jess the cat, Carlo and the loads of people I’ve forgotten. TRIBAL GATHERING After Ravenation there was no time to lose. I shot straight home and got me head down. I had a big night ahead of me. As soon as I got home I chucked me raveclothes into the wash and got me head down. I managed around 3 hours sleep, then got up again. I made my way to St. Pancreas to meetup with Dan and Crissy. Eventually Dan turned up and said they wouldn’t be able to make it as crissy was unwell, but he gave me my train ticket and wished me well for my trip. Eventually I got on the train (when the bastards at Great western deigned to provide us with a working example) and set off up north. I was desperate to sleep, but I couldn’t, so I down cans of a lager till I passed out and managed a brief hours rest. It would have to do. Eventually I got into Manchester Piccadilly and a few minutes later I was met by Davespice. So began the start of the biggest rave I’ve ever been to. Tribal Gathering is famous for their big open air parties in the mid to late ninties. This past few years they have been a bit quiet but this year they promised something big. “Big” was defined earlier on this year as an old skool style warehouse rave at an undisclosed location in Manchester. In a departure from wall to wall superstar DJ lineups, only 25 DJs across 3 arenas were in the lineup, some doing sets as long as five hours. Two LivePAs from A Guy Called Gerald and the almighty LFO capped things off. All this was in an effort to recreate the old party atmosphere that had been lost by corporate clubbing encroaching on the party scene in the late ninties. However all of the above would be lost if we could not find the venue! Davespice had a map, but it was on the fuzzy side to say the least and as this was my first time in Manchester I was in the dark as Dave was. By some miracle, we managed to navigate halfway there and followed ravers to the venue for the rest of the way. Once we were there we made our way round the back to the entrance and started queuing for our reserved tickets. Halfway through the big queue, we realised we were in the wrong queue and switched to the smaller queue. Doh! Five minutes later, tickets in hand, we were heading to the entrance. Just as we reached the entrance, the police helicopter zoomed low overhead. These people think of everything to increase the atmosphere!!! Me and Dave weren’t even searched and after handing over our tickets, we were in. As soon as we were in, we had to fight our way past a huge queue of people waiting for the bogs, then we had to fight our way through arena 3, then we had to fight our way past the merchandise queue and the bar token queue. After that we were in the second arena. f**k me, what a spectacle. The second arena was HUGE. Right down the other end, barely visible through the smoke and the haze of 5000 ravers going for it, was the arena stage and sound rig. The speaker stacks reached up into the rafters, 20 foot off the ground!!!! All around the arena were blazing lasers, more video screens than we could count showing endless smiley faces and dancing Jesus’s. Serious lighting rigs were all over the place. This was quite possibly the highest specced production I have seen at a rave. And this was in a warehouse. And this was the second arena! Me and dave walked into the main arena and were totally blown away. The second arena was massive but this was a full 75 foot longer and filled with another 5000 ravers going for it! I couldn’t even see the other end of the arena, so me and dave went to find it . Halfway down we found the main stage. Either side of two lorries with speakers on the flatbeds was a huge stage with 6 decks and 6 CDJs on it. Either side was a huge lighting bank and more lighting rigs hanging off the ceiling. If arena two was the best production I’ve seen, it was topped five minutes later by the main arena. If that wasn’t good enough, outside was a waltzer and other fairground rides with the EC portaloo mountain set up around the borders of the venue. Everywhere I looked was a sea of people, people and more people. This was a massive rave, make no mistake about it. The music was on the slower house tip, with the second arena, playing host to the Rackpack (no I aint spelt that wrong) alongside “Mad mike and his sidekick Ketaman” Although it was slower than the night before it was still very danceable, with Dave and I joining it happily with the rest of the ravers. Before we knew it it was 12:30 and it was time to get to the main arena for the first Live PA. A Guy Called Gerald was playing live in the main arena, so me and dave fought to the main stage to see him. Just before we were about to start, I received a bonk on the head. I turned round to see Dan Desire and Cris-e-manic, who’d decided to come along despite dodgy nodeness. On the whole, this was when the evening took a bit of a dip. Geralds PA was a bit on the odd side, with a constant house beat being overlaid by various riffs and stabs. Everytime a new one was added the crowd went mental, and me and dave were stood there going “EH?” just not getting it. Accuse us of being philistines if you want but we found it a bit too chinstrokey and left early and went to find other things to amuse us. Unfortunately, the evening did not improve till around 2.30am, when a clash of the scratch perverts and LFO saw us fighting our way to the third arena and found they were running late. On the decks was Krafty Kuts, who it turned out, played the set of the night, at least in Dave’s opinion. Kuts mixed Old skool hardcore. Tunes such as SL2’s On a ragga tip and and Prodigy’s Out of Space were mixed and scratched to perfection, to a point where we thought the Scratch perverts had already turned up (having never seen them before) Mix of the night goes to Kuts for mixing the original Reggee tune which “I’m descending to outer space” was ripped from and mixing it into the prodigy version so damn seamlessly, I thought it was another mix I’ve never heard off. “I’m putting on an ironed shirt, getting ready to go out to work” to “I’m descending to outer space, to find another place” in an instant. Wicked. All the time accompanied with wicked scratching, it was a blinding 20 minutes, if the reaction of the crowd was anything to go by, they thought so too. LFO were on as well, so when the oldskool finished, we fought out of the third arena and into the second to see the rest of LFO’s set. Luckily we had only missed a bit and we were priviliged to see around 40 minutes of their PA. The only tune I had heard from them in the past was LFO, but this was whole new stuff and it was exactly what I’d been looking for. Thundering basslines, coupled with oldskool bleeps and blips, it was everything I’ve ever dreamed of. I remember saying to Dave “This is the sort of music I’ve always dreamed of raving to” and it was as well. Hard as nails, cool as fcuk, yet as ravey in style as could possibly be. I was going nuts during their set, and rightly so. This was deffo the highlight of the evening. After that I thought the evening couldn’t get any better. Till Jeff Mills came one Jeff Mills played early techno and it was great. 3 whole hours long, I was set for the end of the night. The only slightly odd thing about it was the bassline of his tunes seemed to be different. Instead of Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! Of everything else I’ve heard, this seemed to have a two step bassline, doing Whump! Whomp! Whump! Whomp! The whole way through. Not that I cared. It was hard, danceable and very very good. I went for it for the final three hours, dancing as hard as I could to the best set of the night. At one point I got very close to passing out and had to stand outside, stripped to the waist with steam coming off my body. Straight after I cooled down, I was straight back in till I overheated again That’s how good it was. I went right till the end of the night, Dancing through daybreak till the last tune. Then Screaming for one more, Despite the sign on the video screen saying “NOTHING TO SEE HERE!!!” Things I liked: Sheer spectacle, visually it was the most amazing raving experience of my life. LFO, nice to see them back together again, Top notch atmosphere, real old skool back in the day rave feel, The police in the venue (the sight of 6 coppers standing directly underneath a 12foot mural of “Ketaman” extolling the virtues of his “Ketagun” Whos “Ketaray” was “the most powerful stunning device in the universe” was worth the entrance in itself Things I liked less: No hardcore, but I knew what to expect, it was a house rave so you’re gonna get house. So fair play, Dodgy toilets, no bogroll. The water taps having no pressure at all. I could piss harder than that. Filthy dirty venue. Still on the spectacle alone this rave was amazing. Although I didn’t enjoy myself for the first half, the second half was blinding. Paul Zykotic would have loved the techno, Barticle would have loved the whole thing. I will deffo be going to the next one. Especially if it’s in a warehouse in Manchester. Shouts to: Davespice, Desire, Cris-E-Manic, Cryptwalk and the random guy who I’ve never met before who swore blind that He’d been to Astradance 2 :) DANCENATION I got home from Tribal at 3pm Sunday. I felt a bit tired and went to bed. I woke up at 6am Monday morning. 18 hours of non stop sleep, guess I was a bit tired then! No time for that though, I had one more rave to do to finish off the weekend. Dancenation is a new event, based in Newport, South Wales. The lineup looked initially very good, but unfortunately it was chopped and changed numerous times, till the confirmed lineup appeared. It still looked good, so I conferred with Davespice and we decided to meet down there, then we’d crash round his house afterward. After getting a bit more sleep, I tanked down the M4 and got to Newport at around 5.30. I picked up Davespice from the station and a few minutes later we arrived at the venue. We parked in a little carpark round the corner and went in. A fairly strict search later and we were inside. Initially, we were disappointed. The venue was a converted theatre, with a balcony with seating above and a dancefloor below. The main stage had all the usual lighting laser smoke machine apparatus set up, along with some very cool looking vertical blue fluorescent tubes either side of the DJ stand. The main problem I had with it, was that no-one was there! The venue was 2000 capacity and there was about 75 people tops. Still, it was very easy to be underwhelmed after going to a rave the size of tribal gathering the night before, and I firmly believe a raves is as good as you make it, therefore me and Dave decided to make it a good one. When we arrived, M-zone was finishing off his set with some good hardtrance. After he had finished, Vortex was up next. I’ve heard a lot of his stuff lately as I had been listening to his tapes from the future dance tapepacks and have enjoyed them. Vortex played a little different from what I’ve heard previously in that he played the softer end of the gabber scale and to be honest, I liked it! Nice and danceable, even after two very hard days dancing behind me. It helped that me and Dave were upstairs and there was carpet. Always nice to dance on carpet as it makes harder stomping easier. Next was Mark EG who played his usual hardstyle, erm, style. This was one of the better aspects of the night, the set selection was very well chosen, as the pace of the night was turned up progressively as the night wore on. Mark played a good hard set,complementing it nicely with his manic and often hilarious stage presence. Its always a pleasure to watch Mark at work as although I will always prefer hardcore to hardstyle, Mark’s looning about on stage always makes up for it:) nice one mate. After Mark EG was meant to be Hixxy, but unfortunately he was the first of the nights cancellations. In the end Brisk, Hixxy, Breeze and Styles failed to show, but hixxy’s set was covered by local lads, The Barmy Boys. They played a happy hardcore set, which always is a winner for me. It was so good that they would have easily taken set of the night, had it not been for the appalling mixing. Shame really as me and dave were getting into it nicely when all of a sudden another clang lurched through the speakers. Never mind, its always nice to hear happy hardcore. Wottsee looked as though he was just as appalled as the crowd was but managed to save the set with blinding lyrics which brought the set back from the brink of disaster. Next was two more local boys who’s name escapes me. They played loads of raverbaby based stuff which was enjoyable and very entertaining and had the advantage of being properly mixed this time! At this point I will confess to not remembering many tunes of the night at all. Still after three days of non stop raving, caffeine abuse and sleeping, I can be forgiven for not being too well endowed in the memory department . After that one of the big name DJs stepped up and saved the night. At this point there were around 150 people in the venue. All of them had it all the way through Scott Browns set. He played his trademark mixture of trance influenced hardcore, mixing to gabba toward the end of the set. Tunes like the Gabba Remix of “Cold as Ice” and Elysium were always gonna get what little crowd there was going and me and Dave were loving it. One thing we weren’t loving though was the MC who was on the mic during Scotts set. Another MC who seems to love the sound of his own voice, he tended to dominate the music more than a little. I remember wishing it was hotter in the venue so he’d need to catch his breath a bit more, and we’d be able to hear the music in the meantime. No such luck though. Eventually he gave up and another MC came on. He had the advantage of knowing when to chat and when to keep quiet. Still it didn’t detract from easily the set of the night. It was so good, I even managed to dance to Gabba! An achievement in itself, this was soon overshadowed by the event being cut short. Another local boy had stepped up after Scott brown, but only managed two tunes (one of them being the excellent Thou shalt not forget) before the management pulled the plug. No explanation, just get the fook out, now. On the way out I asked one of the security team what had happened and she said that the toilets had been destroyed but person or persons unknown. IMO this was no reason to cancel the whole event. I could use phrases, like unprofessional, infantile, childish and you cant play with my train set, but it was safe to say that me and dave were seriously unimpressed and I was a little upset that my weekender had ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Anyways: Best event: Ravenation Best spectacle: Tribal gathering Best music: Dancenation. Each event wins an award in my book. Despite being very hard work and very expensive, this had to be done whilst I was still young enough to do it. Cheers to everyone who made the weekender what it was. The weekend in numbers: Hours spent in a rave environment: 22 hours & 45 mins. Distance travelled in miles (approx): 811. Number of caffiene tablets consumed: 11 Number of Redbulls sunk: 6 Number of square meals consumed: 0 Amount of service station crap and fast food junk consumed: loads Number of times me and Davespice were mistaken for event staff at Tribal cos of our dayglos: approx 30,000 Number of DJs that appeared played twice at events I attended: 1 (scott brown) Amount of times I had a problem with that: 0 Weight lost from a baseline of 160lbs: 8lbs Number of raving injuries: 2
