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Features
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| Introducing NEM3SI$’s new label Infinite Resistance! | | Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! | | Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! | | Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! | | Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. | | Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! | | Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! | | NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases! | | Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup! | | Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! | | Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music! | | SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023! | | The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023! | | NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music! | | Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project | | The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22! | | A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden | | Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma | | Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino | | New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik! | | PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records! | | Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters! | | N-Kore talks Jean-Michel Jarre, unfinished tracks and fatherhood! | | Celebrating International Women’s Day and Ten Years of Psy-Sisters with Amaluna | | A Catch Up with John Phantasm ahead of his upcoming set at the Tribal Village 4 Day Outdoor Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022! | | 'The Maestro that is Tristan talks barn owls, Shazamming and keeping it Psychedelic ahead of his upcoming performance at the Tribal Village 4 Day Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022! |
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We have Transmission!
Reported by AlmostEddy
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Submitted 27-05-05 17:58
They say you can’t have you cake and eat it. Well that may well be so, but the long Easter weekend you can have as much choccy eggs and hop til your heart’s content with so many great parties that take advantage of this wonderful ‘no work til Tuesday’ double bubble bank holiday. You can hunt out some real gems of a night out. Mine started with some divine intervention: first of all, with a half day at work, then a heavenly night at Gatecrasher, then a less crowded but very friendly night in the Soundshaft on Friday. But the absolute highlight of the Easter hunt for a big night out was to be held on top of Mount Alexandra for this huge hatching of this aving it event… This is Transmission and the way I had it…
Following the packed coaches up the hill sent my blood racing as this was no doubt going to be an event that brought together many different styles of dance music; it was going to bring together many eclectic types of peoples who choose to head out of a nighttime to worship an almost tribal state of mind we call raving and that just got my rocks off. Thousands of ravers, all up for it, and all hunting the bounce — whether that was the bounce of hard house, hard trance, old skool house, funky house, drum & bass and hard core. Yes, for a night with so much frantic dance energy, you really do need to be hardcore, as once you set foot in that environment there would be no release, no escape hatch, apart from a sad drive home to play with the cat.
Many events are hyped so out of proportion it’s a joke, but with this venue, these promotional teams — which involved Slammin Vinyl, Hardcore Heaven, Frantic, Wildchild, Raindance, One Nation and Pushca — and with a dj line up that included Proteus, DJ Hype, Lisa Lashes, DJ Sy, Phil Reynolds, Slipmatt, K90, Mark EG, Scott Bond and the Hoxton Whores, not only was this not short of party know-how, musical talent, location, numbers, timing — in fact, this event had all the trappings for a fun loving, foot stomping, totally aving it party. The roadies and techies had been hard at it for days before to put this altogether, which is no walk in the park. There was shed loads of blood, sweat, tears and coffee before we had a chance to spill a drop of sweat ourselves in the place.
Of course, with such big events people are inevitably late, so I hung around outside for a good while, which gave me a chance to see some of the types of people that I was about to take the oath of dance with. It was like the biggest house of fun I’d ever seen. They came in all shapes and colours, from fire-eating trustafarians to teenagers stepping out of limos, wearing all sorts of attire, from Rebok to Channel, even James Bond-like security men with dogs, which were so cuddly that I just had to… After realising somebody wasn’t doing their job properly, it was time to make haste to the queue and on my way to getting out on for the night.
With these huge venues it’s hard not to feel like cattle while you file through the steel fencing but fortunately it wasn’t long before I reached the portacabin and my time to lay a top night out… well, ok, I still had to queue for the cloakroom, which didn’t take too long either. I was shocked to be confronted with huge palm trees inside the building, as the only other time I had been in Alexandra Palace was ice-skating as a nipper when I was far too interested in all the spotty girls. Well things don’t change that much, as there were many spotty young girls already there. This main entrance hall was being used as a queueing area and I just couldn’t wait to get into and onto the dance floor, so I headed for what I knew. I pretty much had to swim through the hoards of people to get to any form of dancefloor. Now this was early on in the night, but there already seemed to be casualities propping up walls and chewing their own faces off looking at walls… but more fool them, and off I went to the Frantic arena.
The very first thing that struck me upon entering the Frantic area was the totally off-putting smell of burgers and hot dogs. Not that food at events is a bad idea — on the contrary, it’s a great thing to be able to eat at some point in the night. But when you’re shaking your arse on the dancefloor and the smell of food wafts up your nose, it can easily have you running to the loos for a very different sort of get down, so please for next time stick the food hut somewhere near an extractor fan.
Just as main rooms are at such big venues/festivals, there was space at the back of the main hall, then as you moved closer groups began to morph into a crowd, then a mass of swarming, happy, jumping up for it clubbers gathering dance energy and turning the place into a honeypot of joyous dance… Frantic had really made the most of what appeared to be the best stage, using the Victorian stained glass window as a centrepoint, with lights circumnavigating the round window with the main face-on laser around the dj. Fortunately Lisa has long luscious lashes to give her eyes some cover from the oncoming laser light as she laid out the dance floor in a manner only she can. Her cyber children following to be counted and covered in laser light with limbs aflaying, smiles brimming, this was a great way to start the hatching of this Easter eggsitement, but before I was knocked to the floor by the wave of glow sticks, dummies and ever so colorful bangles, it was time to see what else was on offer, so I grabbed my life raft and wandered on back through the happy hyper cyber sea to the WildChild arena for some trace of solace in a state of trance.
I’ve had many good nights at these guys’ parties before so I was well prepared to be propelled into a main of light with euphoric tones that can curl your toes, but only managed to catch the tail end of Wildchild’s colourful head dragon Reece Elliot, but by the state of the dance floor with happy hyperactive clubbers covering themselves with dancefloor happymess he seemed to have sprayed the walls with dance fuelled energy so from a sea of happy hyper cyber it was a colourful land of angels and devils reaching for their inner wild child to keep the fire burning well into this Easter night. Wildchild always brightens up any venue they play, not only with the characters that frequent their event, but also with the décor so with their party colours of blue and pink, this stage was presented to us like a huge Easter egg of trance goodness. So after a short sugar rush to the start of Andy Bagguley and Brisky’s set, it was off to get lost and to get another different section of this egg of a party called Transmission.
Now this event had 8000 people in attendance — that’s a lot of people to keep oiled. But after having queued twice to get a drink I needed a change of environment. Well of being of a certain age the old skool room had a little interest for me, but my date was having none of it, so when the angels from above came down to spread their wings, like doves, my angel dragged me back to the present day with a quick trip to the drum & bass room. So my apologies to Billy Bunter, but thank you for all the times that you have taken me to utopia in my misspent youth.
Making my way into the d&b room hoping to hear the cries of “Brooockie” as my time in a d&b room wasn’t that long ago, with all the heads bobbing up and down it felt like the tent at Homelands, so smell aside it seemed a good place to have a skip to the beat. Some drum & bass has a real tribal feel to it and it was good to look around and see people swaying to the same beat and having fun as a huge massive crowd, but it was too stuffy in amongst this happy tribe so it was off to queue for a beer again… and again…
The main stage of the hardcore room had a huge LCD screen video wall set up behind the dj and at the distance I was, it sort of looked like watching tv with a crew of up for it flies on the screen! Now hardcore for me is an even more distant memory than drum & bass/jungle and musically doesn’t hold enough melody for me but there was such a helter skelter atmosphere in there I just had to get on board and sail on in unswum waters.
DJ Dougal showed why hardcore is usually proceeded by the word ‘happy’ — it was definitely one of the best places to be for some of the most highly charged atmospheric dance floor space in the place, with horns a blowing, glowsticks a wavin, this was some of the best cheesy quaverin on display. Dougal then handed the reigns over to Scott Brown as I gasped for air and some amber nector, Mr Brown just kept the crowd chasing the rainbow in a colourful hectic stomp.
This got my pulse racin to such a high nrg state that I’m used to raving to that it was tme to check out Proteus in the Frantic arena. On my way through the maddening crowd I bumped into many characters, one being a well track-suited up chap whose best mate was just about to get married, and being the best mate was being the best man and was planning a stag do involving visiting all their old boozers and kebab houses they used to frequent as single gents. This had me giggling no end, so I suggested he could have a stripper come into one of the kebab houses claiming to be from the environmental health agency then get her babs out, and so on and so forth… he chuckled and I left him to arrange his hoody. My chav brethren, I salute you and raise a nelson to ya!
As you may have gathered, this event was not so much about the music, as in many areas the sound was terrible and in others would even cut out—as it was about the coalition of all the different dance groups that were catered for, from drum and bass, hardcore, funky, old skool, trance and hard house. But one set, one man, stood head and shoulders above all that night and that was the man who’d travelled quite some way to add his contribution to this carnival of dance and that man was Proteus. This man breathes high octane and is a true performer in all senses of the word. He played an absolute volcano of a set that had musical plasma seeping out of the venue and down Mount Alexandra, and no matter who heard it, be they chav or champagne charlie, he had us all stomping to the same beat with all his usual high energy visual performance: it was well worth the £35 door fee for him alone. Proteus is someone who does so much more than just beat match two floor-fillers, so forgive me for not writing as I danced.
Many more flurries from place to place ensued, with a delightful stop in the funky room to a fashion floorshow and hypnotic tassels from a fabulous dancer. Some of my funky loving friends had been unimpressed that the funky/electro room given prominence in the flyer was made into a VIP room at the beginning of the night, and although this was sorted out later on, it was then hard to find.
Phil Reynolds then took the reigns with his uplifting blend of euphoric hard trance. My favourite track of times of old, ‘Times Like These’ has been through the remixing factory to make a timeless classic fresh all over again. It was then that we spotted her: bright pink cyber dress, yellow hair, orange skin with… wait for it… blue track suit bottoms!! Cyber has taken a new crazy twisted futuristic lean: enter the cyberchav!! No doubt nights like Polychavual are full of such local beauties, but they don’t make it to the big smoke all that often. As this absolute top night came to an end the only place to be for me was the Frantic area with Phil Reynolds to give us a right god forsaken Sunday service and the morning sun bursting though the stain glass windon, here I stand upon the Easter morning. Thank god for bank holidays and thanks to everyone who was there for making it a night worth leaving the choccy eggs for.
Thanks to Joeyxx and Phill Young for the photos.
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Other Features By AlmostEddy:
Polly's sexual party review
YojiTime
Back2school
The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable.
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had me giggling more than once 
