Hardcore Til I Die
Event 20
‘The Skool of Hardcore 2007’
Air (Formerly Code)
Saturday 3rd Ferbuary 2007

Hardcore Til I Die returned back to Birmingham as they kicked off their first event for the New Year with The Skool of Hardcore 2007. The theme of the evening was a school night, the Oxygen arena was the Master class of Hardcore, featuring the very best from today’s current hardcore scene. The Carbon lounge was a History lesson in hardcore, with nu-skool breakz thrown in for good measure.

HTID is renowned for being a sold to capacity as once again the advance guarantee entries were all sold out within the week leading up to tonight’s party. Arrived in Digbeth shortly after 10 and was greeted by a massive queue outside the venue.

There were two queues outside the venue one being filled predominantly with those who had entry codes and another for those with credit card bookings. It was a very frosty and chilly night but the ravers were out in force rain sleet or snow and were waiting patiently to gain entry into the venue. Hixxy was working very hard outside the venue making sure things were running smoothly.

Headed straight to the main arena and the beautiful Cally Gage was on entertaining the crowd with her uplifting trance selection she even played a remix of Dougal and Gammer’s ‘Heaven on earth’. The main arena was decked out with plenty of banners spread across the walls of the arena. With various objects hanging across the ceiling, there was even a school bell on the stage as well!!

There were two massive projector screens above the dj box displaying various text messages sent from the crowd, along with advertisements of forthcoming HTID and Raver Baby events. The sound system wasn’t quite loud at this point but the dance floor was filling up rapidly.

It was fast approaching 11 and time for the kick off set Storm was getting on the stage and was given a rapturous welcome by the HTID faithful. Hixxy took to the decks and all of a sudden the JBL sound system was turned up to the full making it loud and crisp, rattling the walls of Air.

Hixxy kicked off the set with ‘This is hardcore and this is what I do’ with Storm on mic duties reciting the lyrics of this track along with the crowd. Hixxy was showcasing plenty of tracks from his award winning Raver Baby label dropping the likes of ‘Beat drop’, ‘Untouchable’ and ‘Only you’.

Storm was magnificent as he welcomed back the crowd to Air for HTID first event of 2007, hyping up the crowd on this familiar stage ensuring that the party was kicked off in true HTID style. Hixxy carried onto play ‘Overload’, ‘Sacrifice’ Hixxy even played the Essential platinum classic ‘Steam train’ which went down a storm. Hixxy finished the set with ‘Night Life’.

Storm rang the school bell as we started the next lesson from our teachers in the form of Dougal and Whizzkid. True to form Dougal was playing a very uplifting vocally set opening the set with ‘Count the hours’ and playing ‘My direction’, ‘Here come the drums’, ‘Nobody likes the records’ and ‘Boom Daka’.

Whizzkid was superb for this set, really enjoying the partnership that he and Dougal have built up together. Whizzkid’s beat boxing and lyrics that the crowd can participate with really complimented Dougals tune selection.

After this set I headed upstairs for a history lesson DJ Twista was up here with the award winning MC Caspar. Twista was playing a nu-skool breakz set which was littered with remixes of oldskool classics such as ‘ Baptised by dub’, ‘Set you free’ before closing the set with a remix of the prodigy classic ‘Wind it up’.

Following on from Twista was the turn of midlands oldskool legend and Flashbacks favourite DJ Pilgrim. Pilgrim gave the Hardcore pupils a history master class taking them on an education back to 92. Pilgrim opened up with the Nebula II classic ‘Flatliners’ and proceeding to play ‘Frequency’, ‘Ruff in the jungle’ and ‘My own’.

The south coast legend that is MC Knight was on mic duty and was doing a grand job, hyping up the crowd with his lyrics. Pilgrim carried onto playing a ’93 break beat oldskool finishing off the remainder of his set with ‘The slammer’, ‘Total XTC’ and ‘Ganja Man’.

Back down stairs and it was the turn of the Darren Styles, originally billed with Whizzkid MC but instead MC Storm was doing the mic duties. The set was already underway and the main arena was rammed with hardly any space to move whilst these two were on. Darren played a remix of his vocal track ‘ Jealous’ which went down really well with the crowd, Darren carried onto playing ‘I say I love you’, ‘Castles in the sky’ remix and ‘Lost the plot’.

There was an incident during this set as someone collapsed in the crowd, but as soon as the alarm was made Storm got Darren to stop the music. Storm had the crowd clear a space within seconds to allow the security and paramedics to deal with the situation quickly and safely. Once normality was resumed Storm made a speech on safe raving and drug misuse in hardcore.

Headed back upstairs and Slipmatt was finishing up a breaks sets which consistently predominantly of remix of oldskool classics with Slipmat finishing with the SL2 classic ‘On a ragga tip’.

Next up was one of thee sets was looking forward to featuring the Fusion resident DJ Unknown of Quosh records. Unknown was playing not only classic 92 oldksool dropping classics such as ‘Far out’, ‘Anastasia’ and ‘Never felt this way’. There was a number of breaks remixes that Unknown dropped such as ‘Liquid is liquid’ which I was very impressed with and the jungle classic ‘Scalp dem’ and ‘Put up your hands’ but mixed it up with a lot of his own original productions which had a real oldskool feel to it.

Final set in the oldskool arena came from the original junglist the one and only Nicky Blackmarket. Nicky was giving his pupils a history lesson in drum and bass specialising in the 96-97 era. Nicky was chopping and tweaking tunes with his mixing skills showcasing numerous classics as ‘Warhead’, ‘Concentration’, ‘Dual Voltage’, ‘Square off’, and ‘Dark soldier’.

MC Five Alive was doing the mic duties with his minimal lyrics complimenting the music, it was good to see this arena rammed whilst Nicky was playing a drum and bass classics considering HTID is a predominant hardcore rave.

During the set Five Alive gave the mic to Whizzkid MC who mced for Nicky reminding me of the set he done with Andy C and Hype a few years back at the legendary Sanctuary. Odyssey also joined Whizzkid briefly on the mic too as he was mouth scratching over the tunes that Nicky was dropping. Nicky carried onto playing ‘Incredible’, ‘Helicopter’ and ‘Original nuttah / Bambatta’. With Slipmatt arriving late the history lesson didn’t finsih until 5.30.

There was only 30 minutes left of tonight and headed back for the final lesson of the evening featuring the Quosh trio of Sy, Unknown and MC Storm. I managed to catch the last half of this set and wasn’t let down at all as it seemed that Sy and Unknown were finishing off a classic’s portion of their 60minute set. When I entered the arena I was greeted to the sounds of ‘Heart of gold’ and ‘Discoland’.

Storm was ensured the party was rocking into the early hours of Sunday morning keeping the ravers hyped up with his lyrics whilst bouncing around the stage from left to right. Sy and Unknown continued with an upfront selection as they played ‘Your shining’ remix, ‘Makin me wanna dance’ and ‘Suck my …’ before closing the night with ‘Free your mind’ remix.

Once again HTID outsold Air with the venue full to capacity, which is definitely the norm at the events that they’ve held at Air.

Tonight’s atmosphere was 2nd to none a great friendly vibe that can only be found at HTID. The ravers were into the spirit of things with a majority of ravers dressed up in the school uniform theme. Was a shame that someone did collapse but once the alarm was made it was good to see the quick response time from the security team to resolve the matter as the ravers safety is paramount.

There were some wicked sets tonight with Pilgrim being one of my favourite playing a great 92 set without having to play many anthems and keeping it real reminding me of my early raving days at the legendary Que club. It was great to see the oldskool arena busy right till the end of the night.

I wasn’t overly impressed with much of the nu-skool breakz being played as there were only 2 true oldskool sets in here from Nicky and Pilgrim who both played my favourite sets of the night. But some of the breakz that Unknown was playing had an oldskool vibe to it. Hixxy in the main arena was another favourite set of mine tonight lots of forthcoming Raver Baby tracks.

Once again HTID are set to be having an explosive year if tonight is anything to go by, roll on the weekender in Spain!

Massive shouts to Hixxy, Joe, Mark, Chris, and the HTID crew, Storm , Whizzkid, Pilgrim, Knight, Unknown, Nicky Blackmarket, Sy, Styles, Twista, Marc Smith, Scott Brown , Wotsee, Odyessy, Joey Riot, Caspar, Seduction, Sprucey, Five Alive, Slipmattt, Sytronik, The Doctor, Chit Chat, Ribbz, 3-Flow, Uplift and Kaylene.

Big Respects To Lisa-Jo, Phil, Andy Legs, Sallie, Lou Lou, John Buzz-B, Izzy, Ronni, Nikki(Happy Birthday), Gareth, Lisa and Sara, Mat Kotr, Alpha, Dave and Mike, Emma, Smithy, Hanna, Chelsea, Kat, Rudeboy Rob, Wookie, Emma, Mark, Becky (Happy Birthday)and Abbie, Kev Pikey and Laura, Saz, Damo, Foggy, Kate, Maz, Paul and Jonny G, Pleasure Dome Mark, Chris Mental, Vic, Phil Friction, Sketchy, Staci, Hatty and Nikki, Caddy, Clodhopper, JB-C, Leanne, Sarah and Mam, Annabelle Lucy, Vicky Narni, Andy From Birkenhead, H100, Gsus, Astraboy, DSI crew and everyone else whose names I don't' know but faces I recognise.