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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! |
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HHA: Frantic's 7th Birthday @ Brixton Academy: The Review
Reported by Olly Perris
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Submitted 29-08-04 19:25
"Get your tickets here for the Academy!! Only £30 a go!". You could be forgiven for thinking that you were going to some sell-out rock concert, rather than a hard house event as you approached Brixton Academy. Frantic's Hard House Academy events have now become so popular that even the touts outside stood to make a killing from those unlucky enough to previously purchase a ticket. As I made my way to the Brixton Academy entrance, dispatching the touts outside with a smug, yet firm "No thanks mate, I'm sorted" remark, I had expected high things from the event billed as being the biggest hard house event of the year, and in true Frantic style, they delivered perfectly.
Upon entering the hallowed 3,500-capicity main arena, which has seen pretty much every major rock band grace its stage at some point in its long history, it was obvious that Frantic had once again gone just that little bit further to pull out the stops to turn it into a giant hard house heaven. Featured on the main stage was 18 plasma screens behind the DJ, and 2 giant projector screens, each featuring live VJ'ing and other visual shenanigans. The sound, a gripe of many who have visited previous HHA events, had also been thankfully sorted. Although there was still a slight hint of the dreaded double-beat effect from the back of the room, the installation of two FunkTion One systems into the main room, the same system tried and tested at other big clubs around the country (think Heaven, The Opera House etc) made the sound pretty much as good as it could have been. Elsewhere, the decor in the entrance hall and the foyer was what you've come to expect from a Frantic event, and the attention to detail was spot on, with everything nicely signposted, apart from the Balcony Arena! Unfortunately, the Balcony Arena was about as hard to find as Osama Bin Laden, and despite searching the whole Academy high and low for it, and even ending up in rooms that I certainly should not have been in and being justifiably ticked off by the bouncers for doing so, I could not find it anywhere! So I'll have to leave this arena out of the review, I am extremely sorry to all the DJ's & clubbers who were in there!
Despite this rather unfortunate setback, the line-up of DJ's in the other 3 rooms was absolutely spot on. For those who have not been to Brixton Academy before, it is split into three main sections. Firstly, as you walk in, you find yourselves in the foyer. Normally used at rock concerts at Brixton as a meeting place, Frantic instead place a huge sound system in there and book some of the hardest DJ's in our scene! It's therefore rather refreshing to walk straight in to George-E playing the timeless anthem Pants & Corset 'Sacrilege'... at 10.30pm! The foyer is billed as being the hardest of the three arenas and it certainly managed that! Secondly, of course, we have the main arena, and with its gargantuan size it is the perfect arena to have that "indoor festival-cum-club" feel, with enough people there to make it feel like a proper club atmosphere. Thirdly, upstairs by the cloakrooms was the Thirsty DJ's arena which served up some of the finest funky house, and acted very well as a makeshift chillout zone, as well as being a mecca for those who prefer their house with a little less grrrr. As I arrived, DJChewy and Rob Alexander was banging out some fantastic vocal US house, which certainly helped to prepare the mood for the harder onslaught downstairs. And of course, somewhere buried in the rafters of Brixton Academy is this elusive Tronic arena, but owing to my utter incompetence to follow signs, alas it eluded me.
The main room was rather slow to fill up, which meant that Donna Birt, playing her first main room set at a HHA event, was playing to relatively few people. But this didn't stop her from rocking the small crowd senseless! Playing some extremely fine funky techno, Donna whipped up the crowd with numerous techno hits including Mauro Picotto's "New Time, New Place", and played a well constructed set, perfect for that particular time of the evening! Tara Reynolds swiftly followed, and carried on the techno theme initially, causing a bit of a stir by playing Steve Hill & Paul Maddox's fantastic new remix of one of my favourite tracks of all time, The Sneaker Pimp's "Spin Spin Sugar". At the same time as Tara however, the foyer was filling up fast as Kutski took to the decks, and I have to admit that this was my favourite set of the night! Playing a fast and furious mix of hard trance & hardstyle, Kutski's immense technical skills were on display, and believe me, this man is good! Chopping and scratching his way through his tunes in a style not dissimilar to Eddie Halliwell, Kutski matched his immense technical ability with the tunes he played, causing a huge roar from the crowd upon playing Hard Kraft 2004, the brand new remix of Zombie Nation. Kutski has been represented at previous Frantic events before, and it was great to see him again here, but I feel that perhaps the set time he was given did not justify his skill. I personally believe that Kutski has the ability to match, or even better, a lot of the A-list hard house DJ's, and if I was in charge of booking the DJ's at the next Frantic event, I wouldn't think twice about giving Kutski a peak time set! Definately one to watch for the future, and should hopefully go on to get the break he rightly deserves very soon!
Back in the main room, Tara Reynold's set came to a close with some upfront Colin Barratt material, as she handed off to K90. Rather comically, as K90 bounced away on the stage in his headphones, only the monitor speakers were actually working, and the main room fell into total silence for about 5 minutes of the start of K90's set! Although unfortunate, it was rather hillarious to see K90's reaction when all of a sudden, the main room speakers kicked back into life to an enormous cheer from the capacity crowd! K90's set was a real crowd pleaser, with tunes such as "Breathe" and "Red Snapper" doing the usual damage, as well as brand new upfront material from his new album "The Inner Limits" (see www.k90.co.uk for more infomation). Stretching from anthemic vocal trance to more instrumental harder trance, the new material sounded absolutely spot on, and the new album should therefore go on to be well received, and if the magazine reviews are anything to go by, one of the biggest hard dance albums of the year! As Brazillian newboy Eduardo Herrera banged out more hard trance in the foyer, including the fantastic "Panzan" by Greg Brookman & Tim Coe, Andy Whitby took centre stage in the main room for his set.
Andy Whitby has been extremely impressive on every occasion I've seen him on, and this was no exception. Technically, he was the best DJ in the main room by a very long way, utilising the DJM-600 mixer to maximum effect to chop and stutter his way through his set. As he came on to the sounds of Breather's "Come On", Andy then caused the biggest reaction of the night by playing two huge anthems back to back, namely Jon Langford's remix of Rank 1's "Airwave" and Nick Sentience's anthemic remix of Ben Johnson's "We Come 1". The reaction from the main room was absolutely deafening, with 6,000 hands in the air and cheering aplenty. Andy also interracted well with the crowd throughout his set, frequently coming to the front of the stage to egg the crowd on! The only gripe I had with Andy's set was that he played a little bit too hard, as by the end of his set the BPM counter was edging above the 160 mark. Normally this would be fine, but with several DJ's still to follow, you did get the sense that it did go a little bit too hard too early. That said though, the technical skill of Andy Whitby easily outshone any other set in the main room, and the crowd reaction to his set was definately positive. Another positive reaction came from the foyer, where Lucy Fur was making her foyer debut. Definately one of the big names in the future of hard dance, Lucy Fur was technically extremely competent, and had the intimate foyer dancefloor bouncing in unison! Another contestant for a future main room set, it's only a matter of time before Lucy's name graces many of the major flyers in our scene!
As Whitby handed off to Lisa Pin-Up in the main arena, Lisa came on and served up to play some of the hardest, yet bounciest tunes around! Lisa, who had just come from the huge Slinky Versus festival in Poole, Dorset (my home town, so don't knock it!) didn't appear to be one bit fatigued as she took to the decks, really giving a great stage perfomance and also throwing in some rather classy dancing behind the decks as well! The crowd reaction to Pin-Up's set was, as always, absolutely huge, and in a conversation with fellow clubbers on the bus ride home, the people I were talking to all put Pin-Up's set down as being the best of the night. Not enough to beat Kutski's efforts in my opinion, but certainly an incredible set nonetheless. Playing her own anthems "Fuck This Fucking Fuck" and "Tie Me Up" alongside some fine Spanish imports and material from her new label, Pin-Up Records, Lisa's set was received well from the bulging crowd in the main room, who by this time were certainly in full flow. Following Lisa was the ever-happy Rob Tissera, a man whose smile alone is powerful enough to feed the National Grid with energy! Rob's set edged more towards a trancey theme, including his brand new tunes "Beautiful Like You" and "Stay" alongside more contemporary anthems. Back in the foyer, Ben Stevens and Justin Bourne b2b Caroline Banx gave the foyer faithful a dosage of severly hard beats, with highlights including Caroline's dropping of Karim's "Ditch The Bitch" and Ben Stevens playing the brand new Paul King remix of Incisions "Beyond Motions".
At 4am, Paul Glazby suitably banged things out in the main room, dropping in Defective Audio's fantastic new version of "Circular Saw", and also a host of upfront Vicious Circle material including another new remix of Incisions, which hopefully will suggest that a new remix disc of this classic tune is due very soon! As Ed Real brought the foyer to a close with his usual cheeky hard house, including the obligatory, yet stupidly anthemic "On The Edge", all eyes were on BK for the last set in the main room. BK had obviously put a lot of planning into this set, and had also constructed some very special bootlegs for the occasion as well. As he dropped in his bootleg remix of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", it was interesting to see the crowds reaction and rightly so, a small mosh pit formed at the front of the dancefloor, and even rather hillariously in the lighting booth, where the guys in there who were obviously rock fans and slightly distressed by the "oomph oomph" music all night, had their moment of glory and absolutely went for it! BK followed this with his signature tune, "No Good" by the Prodigy, and then sent the place into a frenzy by dropping in the Flutlicht remix of Marc Dawn's "Expander", a tune which sounded perfect at 5.30am, towards the very end of the night.
At the end of BK's set, the music dropped momentarily as Frantic promoter Dickon Laws went onto the stage to receive a well deserved ovation from the crowd. Dickon, one of the people surely responsible for many a messy weekend, is now moving on from Frantic to pursue a career elsewhere, and what more of a fitting tribute could there be than to have 4,500 people all simulatenously showing their gratitude to him on Frantic's birthday! An emotional moment for sure, and I think that everyone there would almost certainly like to wish Dickon a happy future in whatever he goes on to do next! As BK brought the night to a close with his anthem "Revolution", the curtain had come down on yet another fantastic Frantic event. Everything about the night had been exceptional; the standard of the DJs, the behaviour of the crowd, and even little things such as the air conditioning in the main room and the decor which featured everywhere inside the Academy. It's fair to say that when it comes to mega events, Frantic do lead the way and set the benchmark for others to match.
Set of the Night: Personally for me it was Kutski, but it seems Lisa Pin-Up drew the best reactions from people.
Tune of the Night: Ben Johnson - Come 1 (Nick Sentience Remix) (Played by Andy Whitby)
Best Bit of the Night: Dickon's emotional farewell at the end of BK's set.
Worst Bit of the Night: The fight which broke out in the foyer at the end, completely unnecessary! And not being able to find the Balcony Arena, d'oh! 
Massive, massive thanks to TEXAS for the photos!! 
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Other Features By Olly Perris:
Addiction @ Hidden preview: interview with Sean Tyas
Interview with Ian H & Matt B of Momentum
Interview with Pierre Pienaar aka P.H.A.T.T.
From a young gun to an industry lion: Heat/HF Xmas Payback(2back) Party preview with Spencer Freeland
Party techno, party music, party animal! The lowdown on hard dance’s newest prodigy, Jamie Taylor
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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Comments:
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From: beagle on 1st Sep 2004 12:06.23
Excellent review, of a night I thouroughly enjoyed. You weren't the only one not to find the balcony arena, does it exist? Anyone? Nobody I spoke to could find it, and it's listed again for HeatUK in a few weeks!
From: Meena on 1st Sep 2004 13:25.16
Good night out and good review too  The not-so-secret balcony area - ok when you walk into the foyer, steer right and you'll see some steps going down and large doors. Go through these doors and you'll see a staircase going up and lo and behold - you have entered the relm of the secret balcony area! I must admit it does take a while to find if you don't already know where it is!!!
From: George-E on 1st Sep 2004 14:04.11
LOL...I thought that Sacrilege will do the trick...! Good review btw!
From: richbowenuk on 1st Sep 2004 14:22.58
The balcony bar was the best area for me!
From: Cally Gage on 1st Sep 2004 17:47.54
Had an amazing time at HHA again! Andy Whitby's set was awesome, I was at the front of the crowd against the railings and the atmosphere was immense!
Such a great venue, didn't really get to see much of anyone elses sets though - sorry!
From: Jennie B on 2nd Sep 2004 12:58.10
Wicked review m8! Must agree with you on most things, although the set of the night would go to BK shortly followed by Whitby........ BK done a typical BK, and played how he plays best nice one all at frantic.....and Cally, being up the front def is better than the side line!
From: Technikal on 4th Sep 2004 16:01.28
Great review Olly, wish I'd gone!
From: Boy_Racer on 5th Sep 2004 11:05.55
I must admit the 24 screens where pretty impressive, plus mr whitby banging it out, yes the balcony bar did exist, not that good but it'll do...
Yet again Frantic put all there time & effort in, it's true to say... they put on the best partys every weekend in london if not the uk..... Cheers guys.....
From: Eduardo on 5th Sep 2004 15:39.18
best party ever!
From: Frantic Dickon on 6th Sep 2004 12:59.25
"An emotional moment for sure,"...you have no idea! ;-)
From: malek666 on 6th Sep 2004 20:23.02
klasnaja masovka bila
From: Macavity on 19th Aug 2005 17:50.16
Beautiful Like You by Rob Tissera & Vinylgroover and The Red Hed is out on September 5th...wicked wicked tune
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