District 99.2FM Presents:
'District'
Canal Club
Wolverhampton
19th February 2005

After hearing how well the previous District FM party went down I thought that it was time for me to check out what the District vibe was all about, especially seeing how good tonight's line-up was for only £12. It was one of my friends birthday so it was a blatant excuse for us to all get together for a night out.

Having not been to Wolverhampton before I didn't really know what to expect, as Wolverhampton is known for being the home of one of the classic jungle raves 'Quest' at Palmoas throughout the early to mid nineties.
We all met up in Birmingham and headed down to New Street to catch the train, once we got into Wolverhampton we decided to have a few pre rave drinks before heading down to the Canal Club.

The Canal Club is not hard to find from Wolverhampton's train station. We arrived at the Club around 10:30 and was greeted by a large queue, queuing took longer than I expected we got in around 11'ish. The bouncer's weren't too sure on the term 'guest list', they were only allowing DJ's, MC's and Ladies through the guest list queue.

After a friendly search and having our guest list places confirmed we were in.
This was my first visit to the Canal Club so I really didn't know what to expect from this venue.

Soon as you walk in the venue you hit the main arena, the DJ box was located at the back of the main arena with a giant video projector screen above the DJ box. There were various platforms for people to dance on with a stage at the front of the DJ box for the MC's to perform on.

DJ Escape was on starting his set, the dance floor was pretty busy at this stage. I found the cloakroom and placed out coats in here, as it was only a pound.

We headed upstairs to the 2nd arena, this arena featured all the District FM's DJ's playing in here DJ Irah was playing. Irah was playing a blinding set with plenty of party tunes to get the crowd going. The upstairs room felt like an attic, as it was quite dark in here though it was spacious with plenty of room to shock out. Irah was playing some classics from 97-98 as he played 'Sound in motion' which is on the flip side of 'Turbulence', along with 'Trouble' a definite favourite of mine from the V camp, which he rewound about 3 times.

Back to the main room and Escape was finishing up MC Jaff was MCin for his set. Escape finished up with Twisted's 'Rusty sheriffs badge'. Next up it was time for the awesome two-some of IC3 and Mampi Swift.

I really enjoyed Mampi's set the sound system didn't really do the set justice though. The mic kept cutting during the set and IC3 wasn't amused. At one point IC3 decided to start raving at the front. Mampi played a mixture of tunes as he played 'Play me', 'In the grind', 'Konflict', 'Spaced Invader' also he teased in 'What's my code? - Dubplate' with the 'The one' though he did also play a lot of new material from Blame.

After Swift it was the turn of another of Birmingham's DJ's DJ Devize, Bassman accompanied him. Devize's set was rolling as he was playing plenty of fourth coming dubs from 3D Mode and Hazard's Radius records. Bassman was definitely up for it tonight, the mic was working perfectly well for his set, it didn't seem to cut out whilst he was on Juiceman was here as well.

Next up was the set I was looking forward to the man from V Recording's Bryan Gee. This was definitely the best set of the night with plenty of new material being played from the G-Man as he was making full use of the Clubs CDJ's as it's very easy to make a tune and play out within a minute of burning it!
Bryan started off the set with a new remix of the classic from 'Leviticus- Burial' that went down really well. Might not be as good as the Yolanda vocal remix but good enough to keep me smiling.

Fearless was MCin and was later accompanied by Shabba unfortunately the mic wasn't working which was disappointing as I was looking forward to hearing Fearless tonight. Bryan sets featured 'Jonny L's - Back to your roots', 'Outterspace' and 'All that jazz'.

After Bryan Gee it was the turn of Full Cycles Surge, Shabba was MCin for this set along with Supa and Junior Dangerous. Surge was playing a lot of new material from Full Cycle as he played 'Slippery slope' along with plenty of dubs as he was making full use of the Club's CDJ's

After Surge it was the turn of District Fm's very own DJ Cykix, he played out the last hour to keep the crowd jumping, he started off the set with the new remix of 'Congo natty-Champion deejay' Cykix also played 'Follow the vision', at this point I decided to grab our coats to beat the rush.

Overall I really enjoyed my first visit to Wolverhampton the crowd were definitely up for it. There wasn't any trouble, the main problem's which a lot of people were complaining about was that the club themselves turned off the taps in the men's toilets and the prices at the bar. It was £3 for a bottle which is kind of steep as it worked out about £7 for a pint luckily I wasn't drinking in here!

I do like the Canal Club as a venue, as it's laid out very well and it was really busy in the main room, though the sound system was far better and bassier in the 2nd room. Best set of the night probably was Bryan Gee's set, which featured plenty of new material.

I do think that District has a got a good thing going on at the Canal Club. There were only a few teething problems mainly to do with the sound system and mic, but I do believe that these would be sorted for the next party. As District do normally use their own sound system but weren't allowed to install this at the Canal Club tonight.

It's unfortunate that promoters are in the hands of the club owners, and whatever the club owners say's goes be it bar prices, sound systems used etc. Though this was the first time that the Canal Club has been as busy in many weeks. So I do hope that District will be able to work out some arrangement for the next one, as this night does have a lot of potential!

I would like to wish District all the success in the future and would definitely be up for returning to the Canal club in the near the future. The next one is April I do believe and features the guv'nor Andy C along with MC Foxy many more.

Big shouts to Mello and the District Crew, Fearless, Mampi Swift, IC3, Bassman, Hazard and Devize, Zoe and Collette, Dave (happy birthday mate), Scotty, Faye, Escape, MC Presha, Mark Lambert, Juiceman, Brian BK, Irah, Astro, Amy, the rest of the DNBA midlands forum crew and also to everyone else whose names I don't' know but faces I recognise.