Ikon's weekend report - North + Headrush

[Ikon]

Friday Feb 14th - NORTH @ The Void, Stoke-on-Trent

 

Headed down as usual with my adoptive crew, the Birkenhead/Rockferry boyz (and gals)! Tugie had gone on ahead as he was travelling with Tate who was playing out for the very first time and didnt want to miss his set. Journey from B-head to Stoke was alrite, exept for no-one bringing a tape so we were forced to listen to radio Citys kickin(!) Scouse house selection!! I managed to numb it out by downing a bottle of J.D/Southern Comfort and coke concoction I had bought with me anyways! Heh!

 

Got to the Void and there was a decent enough que outside although nowhere near as big as the on for the xmas party! Being a superstar MC I managed to bypass the que and head straight into the club. Headed straight into the Technology arena where M-Zone was playing first set in front of the bar staff and myself!!! had a bit of a chat in between mixes about tunes etc. He played some bangin Italian Hard Trance including - Tales of a vinyl by Technoboy, The Thomas Trouble rmx of Le Brisc - Ive got the power, a wicked new tune on dutch label Hardball that I dont remember the name of and a bangin tune that said M-Zone - G.G.Y.O (go get your own) so im guessin it was a new tune produced by himself. Due to the lack of crowd I headed into the Radical arena for a mooch.

 

Found The Teknoist on the dexx instead of Tate! turns out Tates old dear who was driving him and Tugie had missed not one but two(!) S-o-T junctions!!! and they were twenty odd mins away!! so much for not wanting to miss his set! Ha Ha! They finally arrived about 25 mins late and Tate took over from TT. Played your average Party Hardcore and got the early birds bouncing nicely! I got on the mic and anounced his names a few times for the tape and got the crowd to make some noise for his first ever set playing out!

 

After Tate came Deathmachine, I announced him on the dexx but then left as he started pretty fast and its impossible to MC to fast Industrial/Speedcore! Headed back into the back room where N-Zyme and Naylor had taken over playing a nice mixture of Hard Trance/Techno/Acid. Had a bit of a stint on the mic and the room was filling up nicely. Saw Matt Freebass and had our regular chat about Porn and stuff.

 

Up next came Sarge (Owner of the Spinn-Inn in Manchester) He is known as a (Happy) Hardcore DJ so i was bit sceptical about his set but to be fair he absolutley rocked it!!! He played an awesome selection of Italian Hard Trance including le Brisc - Ive got the power and Blutonium Boy - Play it loud. By this time Sharkey had arrived and we both went back 2 back on the mic and the atmosphere in the room absolutley blew up!!!! I dont know if everyone had bought pills of the same guy and they all kicked in at the same time or what but it went wild! and it stayed like that allnight and as I said down the mic quite a few times "The party was in the back room"!!.

 

Up next was North promoter DJ Vortex, again he played Italian Hard trance but with more of a techno edge to it than M-Zone and Sarge. I had a bit of a bop on the dancefloor during Vortexs set as I was starting to feel the effects of the 9 or 10 J.D and Cokes I had necked and the crowd were having it large so I thought id experience a little bit of the night from the other side of the DJ box. Had a chat with MC Ezy. A lot of the crowd came up askin for shout-outs so I announced over the mic that I was puttin a policy in place that was a "drink for a shout out"! if they wanted a shout then they had to buy me a drink, needless to say the shouts dried up a bit, heh!

Towards the end of Vortexs set I headed into the VIP room that is situated under the DJ box in the main arena and promptly collapsed onto one of the leather sofas in there and from what I can gather fell asleep!dont think I slept for long about 15 mins at the most but I woke up feeling sick but craving another drink (Alcoholic!!)so I headed back to the bar in the back room

 

Sharkey and Kev Energy were just about to kick off so Sharkey grabbed me to introduce the set. This set was the bollox! they started off with a bit of Hard Trance/Dance such as Red snapper and Blow da roof by Stimulant DJs and worked up to some quality Freeform Hardcore. There was a lot of unreleased stuff being played and most of the set was played on CD dexx. Halfway through the set Sharkey was playing a tune and it broke down into a breakbeat breakdown, or so we thought!. Turns out he was playing a record with two tunes on on side and without him or anyone else in the room realising the first tune finished and the second tune (which was just a breakbeat) started playing, we dont know if the record jumped or if the gap between the tunes was really small but no-one noticed until about 5mins of this breakbeat tune playing. Energy explained to me what had happend and said "when he turns the record off ask the crowd if they want it harder and faster and when they make some noise well bang it up" The crowd went wild and Sharkey obliged by turning the bpms right up!!!

 

About 20mins towards the end of the set The Teknoist came to get me as they needed an MC in the main arena for the headline set - Producer and Radium b2b as MC Ezy had left.I went to leave but Sharkey blocked my way, I explained where I was going but he said "no way, were avin it in here, your staying on"

I did manage to sneak off into the main arena and was met by a virtually empty dancefloor, the atmosphere in here was virtually non-existent and no matter how hard i tried I couldnt [censored] the crowd up,so I fcuked it off and went into the VIP room where a discussion was going on about wordz that dont rhyme with any other wordz like purple and orange etc in my pissed state I added some random comments but all I got was dodgy looks Ha Ha! got paid whilst I was in there so I promptly headed to the bar but found it had shut at 2am! bah!

 

Nevermind, The Trance master Mark EG had just started his set. Yet again he played Italian Hard Trance and played a couple of tunes played 2 or 3 times already that night, if i remembered I told him that a certain tune had been played already by another DJ when he put it on the dexx but a few sliped through! The DJ box was pretty crowded during this set and Sharkey who was pissed as a fart was fallin all over the place so I climbed up on these two chairs at the back of the box and started bopin on them, nearly fell off a few times though! got back on the mic for the last half hour and finished off an exellent night!

the attendance may of been down on the last one but the atmoshpere was electric.

 

Saturday Feb 15th - HEADRUSH @ The Old Hall, Llandudno

 

Wasnt going to go to this as I felt a bit rough after North but decided I couldnt not go to a night in my hometown with M-Zone playing so I went.The night was predominantly Techno with both rooms playing the various styles but there was a few Hard Trance sets thrown in for good measure. The venue is pretty mad, its exactly what the name suggests,an old hall built a few hundred years ago complete with wood panelling on the walls wooden beams accross the roof a big fireplace next to the dancefloor and things like swords, coat of arms and a stags head on the walls!. Met up with The Teknoist who was playing a Hard Trance set under his Mike TT alias. This was the opening night for this event and to be fair the attendance was really good, there was only about 200 headz there but the club is pretty small so it looked busy, there was a good atmosphere aswell even thugh the old hall has a stigma attatched to it for bad attitudes and fighting!

Told myself I wasnt gonna drink but a J.D and coke was only £1.80 so I couldnt resist - spent £25 aswell so fcuk knows how much I drank, wasnt pissed though! Muzik wise it was a good night. Mike TT played a bangin Hard Trance set and even finished with some nu-skool gabber that sent the crowd crazy. A couple of other DJs played some decent sets comprising of techno and trance and then came M-Zone who unfortunatley thought he was playing in Rhyl which is about 20 miles away and so was 20mins late, played pretty much the same set as the night and the crowd loved it. We managed to get about 45mins out of him by holding onto the door handle leading into the DJ box when the security were trying to get in to shut the system down! Ha!

Overall a top night and Im told there will deffinatley be more which is good news for all the clubbers in Llandudno!