Where to begin?! Another brilliant night from the Skelter crew, and yet another chance to go raving mad!! We arrived at the Sanctuary complex around quarter to nine, with just fifteen minutes before things kicked off. The queue was the average size for Helter Skelter, although the security were making everyone park their cars in the B&Q car park opposite the rollers which led to some fun playing chicken on the dual carriageway... As we made our way in there seemed to be the usual setup, the funfair at the far end (this time having the dodgems as always, plus a simulator, rodeo bull and an enterprise ride, but more on the extras later...) and the merchandise stall selling the usual stuff, and LOTS of people waiting for the arenas to open up. Security and the searches seemed to be okay this time - although I've been to the sanctuary over a dozen times now and haven't had trouble any time - but my friend said that the search officer continually stressed the fact that if they thought he had drugs on him they could take him away and search him. Neither of us have or ever have taken drugs to or at a rave! Anyway, back to the music.. things kicked off at 9pm with stompy stompy hardcore in both arenas, the junglists were waiting for their things to happen, and they did for a brief moment when Robbie Long played a couple of jungliss tracks to get everyone going.. it was quite obvious who was playing with "the r the o the b, the b the i the e, the l, the o, the n, the g" going round and round!! The first set of the night for me was coming up so we dived over to the technodrome at 10pm for... HMS!! HMS always makes me go mental everytime I dance to any set he does and judging by some peoples faces I was going for it pretty early on! The technodrome was nicely decked out with cool inflatable aliens hanging from the ceiling, although by midnight all of these had been ripped down and you could see ravers walking round for the rest of the night with purple aliens in tow! After just half an hour we decided to check out what else was going on, and ended up dancing to a bit of Vinylgroover back in the sanctuary, which was a good solid set. 11pm came around and it was time for the www.ush.net meetup! It seems that 8 out of 10 times I try to go to a meetup, I end up going "Are these people from the happy list or not?" and we end up missing it. Not this time, as it was Charmy's birthday and I was determined to say hello.. so there I went, asking all and sundry "Are you here for the meetup" being received by puzzled faces.. eventually I overheard someone saying "Well it's my birthday" so I ran over and went "Are you Charmy??!" judging from the shocked expression I'd got the right person! I was impressed to say the least! Loads of people were there, and sorry to all I met but the only people I can remember is of course Charmy, Paul from S-scape, some bloke who hadn't even put his name on the meetup list, and a completely mad bloke who was just off his trolley! But this meetup add an extra boost to the wicked night this was turning out to be. As we wanted to catch some classic anthems we dived over to the timetable on the sanctuary window to find out where we wanted to go next, when another bloke introduced himself as "Smiley". Wherever you are mate nuff respect! He was another bloke out of his tree, although he admitted he'd become noctural from the amount of drugs he had and how wicked this rave was and how he had so many drugs on him... whatever! Anyway, off to catch Seduction! He was playing all the classic happy hardcore anthems such as Force & Styles "Pretty Green Eyes" and "Harmony" along with "Sensation" and "Shooting Star" making the jam packed arena get even hotter! Midnight had come and gone, and only seven hours to go! After a quick snack we dived headlong for the Rush Hour!! Now, before I go into this I want to make a serious complaint about the night. All in all it was the usual high skelter standard and a wicked rave, but the cost of water, food and etc has got ridiculous. Two fucking quid for a bottle of water?! Fuck off! I only got one bottle the whole night with a view to refill it from the taps, and this is what really gets me annoyed. Some dickhead had decided to cut of the cold water supply in the Sanctuary and reduce the flow in the Rollers to nothing more than a trickle. This is totally unacceptable as people were collapsing the whole night, and was extremelly dangerous to say the least. Next time, sort it out. Now that's off my chest lets continue, the Rush Hour!!! What a fucking excellent set. You have got to catch this next time you get the oppertunity, and to sum it up... wicked dancers, totally brilliant DJ scratching and mixing his heart out, nice dancers, it was more like a stage show than a set. The MC's (sorry, can't remember names) were brilliant, bouncing off each other, getting to crowed hyped up to the max, with wicked jungle classics such as "Shadow Boxing", "Circles" and "Bad Ass" all being played.. luckily I'd revised my rave tapes and was able to join in with the MC's lyrical melodies for most of the set. Apart from a fainting casualty, this was definately set of the night for me. Another quick trip back over to the Sanctuary which was now pretty packed, and time for the sounds of Brisk. This man is in my opinion now one of the foremost happy hardcore DJ's and producers of the scene, with wicked tracks coming out and consistently good sets. This one was no different, hyping up the crowd to a frenzy and dropping a brilliant remix of "I Need Your Lovin" into the mix. What else is there to say?! I'd even started to learn the familiar jabbering of MC Storm "Noise, Fire! Time to take you higher.. etc etc". Another rest break was in order, and we decided to chill out in the tent called surprisinly enough the chill out tent! For once this wasn't too busy, with nice visuals on the screen (although it's not exactly the "cinema" and promised on the flyer is it?!) and a few playstation machines to try your gaming skills on. We just sat there for a while chatting to people, and I enjoyed the most gorgeous slush puppy ever from the burger van (a bargain at only a quid, and more thirst quenching than that fucking water!!). Looking at the timetable for the night ratpack was coming up so it was time to get back to that old skool vibe! Ratpack never seem to fail do they? Another storming set hampered only by the absurd lack of volume from the sound system, we could hardly hear "Some Justice" coming out of the speakers! I know the Sanctuary complex is in the middle of town, but can't we have just a little bit more volume in the arenas please?! After what seemed like eons the sound engineer finally got his arse in gear and the volume cranked up, and so did the vibe! People going insane when "Searching for my Rizla" got dropped, as it does every time.. "Jump jump everybody jump jump!" shouted the man himself and we had to comply, 2500 ravers jumping up and down as if their lives depended on it! Wicked. Anyway, limbs were starting to wear and it was time for another rest (it was quarter to four in the morning after all!) and upstairs in Rollers we went... and by now it was bloody cold outside, not many souls out braving the cold, but luckily there was more than enough space to chill out, big respect go to Dave & Penny for this. Upstairs in Rollers was home to another bar, and both the ten pin bowling centre and the up and coming DJ arena. Helter Skelter has got a brilliant idea with having this arena as it gives people like me the oppertunity to play out and get our names known.. (Helter Skelter another tapes in the post for you, let me play soon!!). A cool diversity of styles were being played up here from trance to jungle in just the 45 mins we were in there before being told to get up and move on by the security. Back down to rollers and who was playing? None other than DJ Hype! The grandmaster of jungle himself played a set that didn't seem to do as much for me as the last time I heard him play.. but there again the last time was the stroke of midnight at new years eve skelter and nothing will top that for a while... Time for Slipmatt! Stompy stompy hardcore beats filled the air (and people) and I moved my limbs as best I could, and it was a pretty good set! Slipmatt does tend to play tracks with a little breakbeat which I personally love. Bring back the breakbeat in happy hardcore! Unfortunately Slipmatt's set got stopped twice for people fainting which got the paramedics and security running in... again everyone waited patiently and wished the unfortunate person the best of luck. Oh no! Last ninety minutes of the night were upon us! By the "new" British Summertime it was now 6.30 which meant we weren't finishing until 8am, result! Mark E.G. and M Zone were doing a back to back set back over at the Sanctuary so we got on our second pair of raving shoes and slowly pushed our way to the front of the crowd, where Mark was living up to his insane reputation by preceeding to smash up a monitor on stage with a garden spade! This bloke is a complete nutter, which made us a bit worried as I thought at one point he was going to hurl it into the crowd! The music was stormin, the crowd was raving and Mark was chewin his records to pieces, this man really needs to get to a dentist! Last set of the night, and Vibes and Lively took to the stage. The shoutouts came flooding in, Lively holding what looked like half a tree's worth of paper in his hand! Somewhere in there were our shoutouts, although we didn't hear them, maybe they'll be on the tapepack. Vibes' set was surpisingly un-cheesy which went down well, and "Techno Wonderland" got a welcome play which I loved to bits. Last track came and people were getting desperate to get their requests played, and the stage manager had trouble on his hands as the stage got stormed by ravers eager to dance and get their shout out in!! At the end of the night over a dozen ravers were on the main stage raving away and the stage manager was getting very pissed off! Nevermind, as always things ended too soon and we stumbled out into the daylight to be confronted with the usual flyer possee handing us more trees, and I cried out when I found that a DJ called "Skywalker" was playing at an event coming up.. that's my name.. although perhaps I could pretend I'd played out... heh heh. To sum it up then, great night, great atmosphere, and Heart of Gold did not get played once! Wahey! Serious though, next time sort out the water and the prices for everything.. and the night will be perfect! Right.. off for breakfast... Eight out of Ten
