The latest of these events was celebrating 35 years of DJ Vibes and I bought tickets when on DJ Vibes and Billy Bunter who is behind these events were the only 2 DJs announced.
The full line up told us DJ Vibes was going to play an old skool set, a Vibes & Live Lee happy hardcore set, a house set and doing a seminar. Also on the line up included Slipmatt and Sy in the old skool room, Groovrerider, Brockie, SS and Remarc in the jungle room, Alex P in the house room and Fat Controller, Kaos and Vinyltrixta in the hardcore room. There was also a seminar with Magika.
It was inevitable that I wouldn't get to see all those mentioned and there would be clashes, but annoyingly they didn't give the set times ahead of the event.
I arrived just after 13:00 and the first room I walked into was a place to buy rave memorabilia such as vinyl and flyers with Ray Keith being among the people with a stand.
I then located the set times to find none of the above names were playing at that moment in time. Taking a wander, the first room I came across was the jungle room which was surprisingly small. Then I went upstairs and found the house room which had doors either end. Returning to the ground floor I saw the hardcore room the other side of the windows where the memorabilia stands were.
We settled on the jungle room to begin with, though it was very much drum & bass that was being played. I didn't know the bulk of what was being played and suspect it was after my time. Was enjoyable hearing the drum & bass beat nonetheless and a bit later the MCs join, 2 of them and I couldn't understand a word they were saying.
With the facilities outside the jungle room being closed a search of alternative facilities took me to the main room. I don't know whether I'm just getting old and my eyesight is failing me but the lighting in that room made navigating it interesting and I was completely sober.
By this point there was around 40 minutes to go until the Vibes seminar and went to the house room but the music seemed a bit too slow after the old skool room so it was onto the hardcore room which obviously didn't have that problem.
To the Vibes seminar then hosted by Fat Controller. Plenty of seating on arrival and I thought it would be more popular but the room did start to fill up as it went on. It was interesting to hear his story and also a nice way to break down the day between the music.
Following the seminar it was a 30 minute wander between the rooms until Vibes & Live Lee were due to play in the hardcore room. In the jungle room were Millz and Jack Light, DJs I'd never heard of but turns out they're Nicky Blackmarkets daughter and Billy Bunters son respectively. The minute or so spent in that room during this set just sounded a racket but was mostly down to the female MC with them. Quickly concluded this was after my time and moved on.
Time for Vibes and Live Lee and was just what you'd expect, some singalong anthems plus the usual rhymes from MC Live Lee. I suspect they did go into the 21st century towards the end because I wasn't familiar with the later tracks and they finished with "Angel Eyes" which I know is 21st century.
Following this it was back to the seminar room with a Magika seminar except there was no Magika there. Instead MC Chalkie White was up there filling in last minute. Nevertheless it was interesting to hear his story. I don't know whether people already knew Magika wasn't there but hardly anyone was in the seminar.
Then it was onto the house room to see Vibes play a house set. This clashed with Slipmatt in the old skool room so decided to do 30 minutes of Vibes and 30 minutes of Slipmatt. Was a little reluctant to go to see Slipmatt because I was enjoying the Vibes house set so much but persisted.
Chalkie White was MCing for Slipmatt instead of Magika but given the lack of visibility it could have been anyone on the decks.
It was back to the house room for the penultimate hour with Alex P. I've never seen him play before so was looking forward to this. It was set of the day, he was playing Ibiza anthems without being it being too obvious and got the blend spot on.
Back to the old skool arena for the final hour caught the last 15 minutes of Billy Bunter before Vibes did 45 minutes to round off the day. He played several of his tunes with Wishdokta and ended the set with "Obsession (Musics So Wonderful)" and "Sing It Loud".
There was an after party happening in the same place which we were all welcome to stay on for but I opted to go home. DJ Vibes himself didn't stay on either because I saw him getting on the same tube as me.
An enjoyable event and I should be back for another.
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