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Party reports

Can U Feel It?

Saturday, March 17th, 2001
Camden Palace, London UK

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What a night!!! Yeah Camden is a wicked venue. Easy to get to, easy to get from and top for both a mental bit of raving or a chilled smoke. It's a place that is accessible to a very wide and diverse range of people which is cool.

The crowd that night was like a dream come true. I can't think of any type of person that wouldn't have fitted in that night. Can You Feel It succeeded in bringing together the most up for it people from both the Rave and Club scenes. That is a really amazing thing - 11 years on and Raindance still has the power to bring together so many different people under one roof.

Connie played a really fresh, raw and unpredictable set of early 90's Housey Hardcore. The best old skool set I've heard in a long while. Quite similar to Rob Blake's sound, Connie relied more on the strength than the familiarity of the music. A great set which kept things live and exciting without relying on anthems for effect. Connie gets all my respect.

Lukozade was on top form on all counts. His wide and varied playlist jumped from Old Skool to New Hardcore right though to Nu Skool yet always maintaining that ruff edge without depending on anthems too much. Not only did he have a pretty wild playlist but he gave it a really ruff ass mix too. Building up the pressure with some seriously funky cutting & scratching, dicing up beats and some properly outstanding set pieces, in particular THAT mix with 'Hip Hop Phenomenon' and 'Far Out'. I thought I'd heard it all but Luke gave it lock stock, the fuckin works and a mix loaded to the teeth with surprises.

Freestylers played an interesting set. A fair bit of their own material in there like the wicked 'Back To 99' and 'Now Is The Time', but also did some serious damage with the Plump DJs mix of JDS - '9 Ways'. They went of on a bit of a Nu Step direction with a few tracks but it was still good fun breakbeat. Everyone form clubbers to ravers was down with the 'Stylers and it showed just by how hard everyone was rocking.

Ratpack's set at the end went down a storm because after a night which featured a lot of new and for many previously unheard material, a set of all the big choons sounds all that bit sweeter. I mean it was near enough the end of the night, but The Ratpack on top of being able to keep 1500 people dancing at 5 in the morning, was also able to introduce them to the new sounds of Stakka -'Humanoid' 2001 mixes that went off like a nuke. Two top gentlemen that know their music, know their crowd and know exactly how to get a party dangerously fired up.

Squirrel played a sweet lil' half an hour at the end which he kicked to everyone's surprise with some tuff Nu Skool. After 8 hours of the UK finest breakbeat from the past and present, the crowd still had it in them for just one more.  Respect to each and every person.

The event looked so damm good. The visuals where superb right from the backdrops to the scans right through to the 3 projection screens and lasers. There was this one really cool moment during Lukozade's set where the bomb sounds on 2 Bad Mice -' Bombscare' where accompanied by some well effective footage of a shuttle take off. The production on that night really did add a huge extra dimension to the 'Can You Feel It' experience. And it was nice to see an engineer at a rave that knows his game. No distortion or even the slightest glitch, just a nice clean 48K System which handled the bass like a dream.

Security deserve loads of respect too. Tight but appropriate searches with metal detectors and everything but nothing to take the piss. They even kept an eye on everyone on the inside and respected us skunk monkeys which I like to see. I didn't see the tiniest bit of attitude or even a harsh word all night. A big credit to security for such a professional job.

Respect to the promoters for taking the risk and going with the music, to the DJs for keeping every set so different and fresh, to MC Ice for his best performance to date, to Lip Master Mark, Evenson Allan, Penfold and Smart E for opening my eyes to a lot of things, to everyone who loves the Hardcore vibe and push to see that continue...... But most of all a shout to every clubber and raver and old skooler and nu skooler and geek and rude boy and northerner and southerner and all those people that left all that at home to come together under one roof and appreciate the best dance music to ever come from the UK, to all those who made Can You Feel It one of the best raves I've been to in years.

 

 

 

Sonia from SOTO

 

 

More info

The next Can U Feel It? rave will be held on May 19th, 2001, again at Camden Palace. For more info visit:

http://www.raindance.clara.net

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