Got to Bowlers at about 7.30pm after setting off explicitly early from Bradford and spending nearly 1 hour looking for a cash machine outside the Trafford Centre. Gave up there and went to Asda instead. Nearly crashed the car after heading out of a junction (I swear I never saw it!) at a pretty unreasonable speed for a busy car park. Parked up and chatted to a few people we knew. Then noticed that the queue was actually getting a lot longer than usual and thought it best to join the queue now than be stood waiting an extra 20 minutes. Got in after about half an hour and was pleasantly surprised to see the addition of sofas in the chillout room. There was also loads of Hugo Boss samples lying about. Tried one of the samples out and then discovered I’d just drenched myself in perfume, much to the amusement of Gemma. Anyway, bought some glowsticks and headed out to the dancefloor. First DJ we caught was Vibes. When I walked on to the dancefloor he was actually playing some pretty good hardcore. This didn’t last for long and he soon put on the usual cheese at which point I gave up and headed back to the chillout room. As the techno room was directly next to the chillout room I soon picked up on MC NRG announcing the arrival of DJ Smurf. Left Gemma talking to some peeps from Rochdale and raced around the curtain to catch the legend himself. Got closer to the stage and who should I see but Bug up there as well. Not wanting to miss the (peg) party I negotiated the barriers and was up there myself. Smurf, with regulation pegs attached, was giving it full behind the decks. I have to admit I’m not really a hard techno or gabba fan but this was the set of the night for me, simply on seeing the enthusiasm from Smurf and making me crease with laughter when he put the Spice Girls tune on. About this time saw Sharkey arrive, made a mental note to catch his set then about an hour later saw him leaving. Oh well. As it was approaching 11pm headed off to my meetup with Woody and KRS. While waiting there we also saw some guy collapse and get stretchered off by the paramedics. Hung around with Woody for a while then went to catch Sarges set. Top class as usual. Playing it nice and hard. Headed back to the chillout room and was talking to some girls sat on a sofa when some pissed up tosser came up and threw himself on the sofa in between the girls. In a Liverpool accent (getting the picture?) he asked me which football team I supported. I wisely said I was not really interested in football. He then proudly showed me his Everton tattoo and then broke into some football type song thing about Birkenhead. At this point I thought it was best to leave him to it and headed back to the dancefloor just in time to catch Sy. Not sure about this set as it didn’t seem up to his usual standard. Anyway, 2am soon came around. Headed outside as we were meant to meet Woody to go to someone’s house afterwards, no sign of him felt really tired and then decided to go home. All in all a pretty good night. Musically the night was a bit of a letdown but I’ll be down for the next one. Shouts to Rob (who was that girl you introduced me to on the stage??), Gemma, Woody, KRS and the guy from Doncaster who’s name I can never remember.
