Flashback
7th Birthday Blast
18.10.03

Change of Venue

Can you believe it that Flashback has been going on for 7 years. That's right 7 magnificent years. This all started from a small night held in Birmingham University, and now the biggest oldskool rave outside of London.
With all the legal paperwork surrounding the future of the Que club, the Que Club lost its license thus moving Flashback down the road to the Sanctuary in Digbeth.

Well we arrived at the sanctuary just after 9 and there were a few ravers gathered here already, as people heard of the change in venue. Come before 10 the Queue had already reached round the block and the doors were finally opened.

Headed straight for the main arena and was greeted to the sounds of Vinyl Junkie, the décor and production gone in to the main room was fantastic with inflatables dangling from the ceiling and the oldskool green laser having a mad one all night.

Vinyl Junkie was playing a more 92-93 set with a lot of underground tunes being played, such as Rave digger,Anthemama I headed to the hardcore room which was situated by the café and DJ Eon was on. Eon was playing a bouncy set as always playing stuff on Next Generation and Evolution think these are his favourite labels.

Wandered into the drum and bass room and I seen that DJ Fluid hadn't arrived but instead Broken mindz's Phase 2 was on back to back with Suburban sound's DJ Alpha. Alpha played some wicked tunes to get the party going including the Nosher remix which is a top tune. The drum and bass room was consistently busy most of the night and you could tell this room was gonna be a sweat box later on.

Back to the main arena and Vinyl Junkie was finishing up as he finished the set with Bish Bosh. Up next was the godfather himself Slipmatt playing a 92 set with remixes of some old tunes thrown in via the cd-deck. He played a remix of Charly along with found a café and of course some classics such as living in darkness.

After Slipmatt it was the turn of resident Mistress Mo, she started the set with the Moving Shadow classic 2 Bad Mice by funnily enough 2 Bad Mice, the Flashback resident MC Lenni accompanied her.

I slipped out of Mo's set and headed to the hardcore room and was greeted to the sounds of Whizzkid along with Deleriums DJ D-Ice, D-Ice was playing an oldskool happy set playing many anthems from 96-97 to get the crowd playing their horns and whistles and singing along. Playing some classics including the Charlie Lownoise Mental Theo classic Hardcore feelings, along with the Vinylgroover remix of Toytown, the Force and Styles classic Pacific Sun, plus many more of my favourite tunes.

Straight after this set finished headed back to the main arena and mistress mo was finishing up as she played a few early jungle tracks playing P-Funk era and finishing with the LTJ Bukem classic Horizons.

Mickey Finn arrived and started the set with the Shy FX Classic Wolf, the crowd were rocking the hell out of the stage during this set there next to no space on the stage well for most of the night. Mickey Finn played a more 96-97 set including classics like 2 Degrees, Bad Ass, Its jazzy , Warhead slipped in Pulp fiction and played the Micky Finn dub plate of the Luniz I got 5 onit! This was one of my favourite sets of the evening.

Pilgrim was on after Mickey Finn, but I headed to the drum and bass room to hear what Mickey Finn is playing these days. Mickey was accompanied alongside the original roller Fearless. Mickey was playing a another wicked set started off with a remix of Bad Ass and was playing a couple of remixes of some older tunes including the ready or not remix also It's a Jazz Thing, a lot of old tunes are getting a re-lick a the moment, he also played Bandwagon Poo's, John B's remix of bandwagon blue's.

After that blistering set it was time for the Vibes and Livelee show in the main arena. This set wasn't really what I expected as Vibes was playing a more 92-94 set rather than 96. I think he's lost his records from 95-96 as he was playing tunes such as One Tribes, What have you done? Outlander Vamp, DMS Exterminate as I said a more 92-94 set rather than the 94-97 set I expected, unless he played that in the hardcore room. Just before this set started a raver congratulated his girlfriend on her 20th b'day and then proposed to marry her !!!! I think she did say yes. MENTAL

Well after Vibes it was time for the original terrorist Ray Keith, he played a really underground 93 set playing tunes such as It's the way, Darkage, Ray Keith was accompanied by Nottingham's MC Spyda. This set was rolling and dark, I headed to the drum and bass room and accelerated cultures Gary K was, IC3 and Mampi Swift arrived to show the crowd how its done proper for the last hour.

It was approaching the last near the last hour I thought it was best to grab my coat to avoid the queues at the end.

As the Cloakroom is situated downstairs near the dance factory I had forgot that the hardcore arena was moved from the Café to the dance factory. The dance factory was being used by Sundisential so it must had been odd for the Sundisential lot to have been invaded by the hardcore crew for the last few hours. DJ SY and MC Storm were on inside here ripping up the place. SY was playing plenty of new material Storm was hyping up the crowd into a frenzy jumping around on the platform.

Well last hour and It was again SY and Storm but in the form of oldskool in the main arena, SY started off with the prodigy classic everybody in the place, sweet harmony remix, ganja man. Storm was tearing down the Sanctuary arena to its foundation he got on the DJ area to MC to the full capacity crowd. Sy ended the set with a few happy classics including In effect, Raves choice volume 2, 4am and then finished the Birthday bash with Jimmy J's Six days.

The atmosphere and crowd here tonight were amazing making the night a huge success. Even though we had the venue problem Flashback raised above the challenge to bring another stomper of an evening in Flashback's history.

Well I think that this was the last Flashback event of 2003, and now that the Que club doesn't seem to have a licence no more what does this mean for the future of Flashback ??

Maximum respect to Mo & Jimmy and the Flashback crew, for putting on a fantastic night under the circumstances. Big shouts to Lenni, Storm + Sarah, Whizzkid, Vibes and Livelee, Micky Finn, Fearless, Pilgrim, Slipmatt, Swift, IC3, Glenn Aston and Will Power.

And not forgetting the party people, ED, Xlr-8, Zoë + Collete, Vicky, Ross, Rob, Karris, Astro and everyone else whose names I don't know, but faces I recognise.