Club Kinetic @ The Leisure Bowl, Stoke-on-Trent 02/06/1995

I was unable to find a rave from this week in 1995 with tapes from it. There were however raves happening every week, one of which was Club Kinetic which is what I've picked this week.

We had the debut outing of "Toy Town" 3 weeks ago. Love it or hate it, this was a significant part of rave history. Like with most tunes making their rave debut though, it was yet to be released.

This is where this particular night at Club Kinetic comes in. On the flyer it says it's the launch night of Platinum Records. Given the timing and the fact Hixxy and Dougal were on the line up it's safe to assume the "Platinum Records" they refer to is Essential Platinum.

Hixxy was the creator of "Toy Town" and Dougal was the DJ who played it out for the first time. Together they launched Essential Platinum records and "Toy Town" was the first release.

In addition we have Force & Styles on the line up. Whilst they'd previously played together as part of Force & the Evolution this is the first time I've seen the name Force & Styles on the flyer. It was also the previous week we'd seen the first Force & Styles tune played out.

If ever there was a night the early 90s would transform into the late 90s then this night would be it. Both Hixxy and Force & Styles were amongst the biggest names in the late 90s and what we are seeing here are the roots of how they got there.