I did a thing yesterday, something that I had officially retired from about five years ago – I WENT RAVING!
I started clubbing when I was 14, back in the 80s and my musical loves besides Hip Hop, was and still is Acid House. I used to go out with a plethora of smiley face accessories, I am still in love with the smiley, I even have a tattoo of it on my arm. Whenever I hear a track that has the squelchy basslines of the Roland TB-303 it immediately transports me back to my teenage years.
So, what event drew me out of raving retirement you may wonder? It was The Hydra X Bicep Chroma. The lineup was amazing!
I had been to various Hydra events at Printworks and loved them, before I decided to stop clubbing. After Printworks closed and they started hosting events at Drumsheds it put the fear in me about wanting to go to such a huge venue (ex Ikea warehouse) that could fit up to 15,000 people.
So here we were, one of my best friends and I, on a stormy Winter’s day with heavy rain and gale force winds making our way up to Meridian Water. We were going out out!
Getting into Drumsheds was actually quick and easy, I had to stop myself from wanting to say hi to the sniffer dog who was busy working. We arrived at 4pm and were greeted by a big sign with a list of items you are not allowed to bring, besides the usual stuff there were also items which to my utter disgust included glow sticks – WHAAAAAAT?! We were also expecting to see fun on the prohibited list. I felt sorry for the guy who had to relinquish his box of Tesco mince pies, seems like a perfectly acceptable accompaniment to some banging tunes.
Now let’s talk about the venue. I’ve been to a few warehouse parties back in the day, they were fun, messy and also illegal. This time the corporate money machine had taken over and because the IKEA warehouse is so huge, the whole place felt soulless, even when it got busy.
Drumsheds is split into three rooms – X, Y and Z.
X is the main room and because it’s the largest, the sound isn’t great unless you are near the middle. Personally my days of wanting to dance in the centre of a group of people are long gone, and besides, I didn’t want my sneaks to get trodden on and covered in drinks which also used to happen back in my raving heyday. I no longer have sneakers specifically for clubbing, so for this occasion I wore my camo Airmax 95s and imagined a force field around them to keep them as clean as possible. It must have worked as they survived and are still clean!
We already knew we were going to spend most of our time in room Y ‘cos that’s where Saoirse, Helena Hauff and FJAAK were going to be and we were then going to room X for 8.30pm for Bicep. We flitted between all three so we could check out the vibes and also when there were some dips in the sets.
LCY and DJ Stingray 313 played a few techno bangers which we loved, although they were few and far between and this was the case for most of the time we were there. Helena Hauff took us on a journey kicking off with breakbeat which then became techno (not enough) before going back to breakbeats again which made us sad so we didn’t even stay until the end. She still played a great set, it just wasn’t quite banging enough for us and this is one of the main reasons why I stopped going to clubs – I got bored.
Call Super who were back to back with Pariah also didn’t tick the boxes for us. By the time they were playing, room X was getting really busy. But even though there were thousands of people in there, it still felt cavernous and soulless. People weren’t even dancing that much, just standing there with their phones and recording videos. This is another reason why I stopped falling in love with clubbing, everyone has their phones out and are too busy recording. Before you point your fingers at me and call me a hypocrite as I also had my phone out, I took some photos so my blog isn’t just a bunch of words… ha! I had a purpose for the greater good, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
So… You’ve made it this far and I’m sure you’re probably wanting to know how amazing Bicep were and did they play a blinding DJ set?
We left before they even came on. 😭
Why did we leave? Because we were hungry and the queues for food were huge and outside in the rain and wind. We also wanted to sit down and chill. Plus my back and my knees were playing up as I’m not used to dancing for 4 hours anymore. 🤣😭
Would I go back to Drumsheds? Probably not. It was fun, but that’s mainly ‘cos my best mate and I always have a laugh when we go out even when the tunes aren’t great. I have to give a huge shout out to the Drumsheds staff who were amazing, particularly the ones who were outside making sure people were able to find the venue and managing people traffic as there were loads of roadworks.
I can see why Bicep Chroma was a sold out event, but clubbing on that scale just doesn’t do it for me. I was so happy to get home, have a shower and put on my PJs.
So from today, this is now day one of my raving retirement again.
beatsandbass 