Raver Baby
Event 4
The Brunel rooms
Swindon
Saturday 11th November 2006

After the sell out success of Raver Baby 3 at the Brunel rooms earlier this year, Raver Baby returned back to Swindon home of the infamous Fruit Club and staged their fourth event. Tonight saw the very best in upfront UK hardcore along with a 2nd arena featuring the harder styles of hardcore with gabba and techno.

Getting to Swindon didn’t take too long trekking down the M5 it wasn’t long before we and parked up in the near by car park. Outside the Brunel Rooms there was quite a large queue of ravers waiting anxiously to get in. Hixxy was out here along with the rest of the Raver Baby door staff ensuring people were getting in smoothly.

The JB Project were on first in here warming up the crowd dropping the likes of ’24-7’, ‘Feel the power’ and ‘Makin me wanna dance’ the main arena was starting to slowly fill up with ravers.

The Brunel Rooms was once again transformed as the Rave rBaby team boosted the clubs existing sound system with their own making sure the sound was booming and crisp all night. There were plenty of visuals too with a massive projector screen and state of the art lighting above the stage with the infamous green laser.

Having a wonder around the club with its infamous rotating bar, I managed to locate the VIP bar with its plush seating and surroundings, some where to escape away from the madness going on down on the dancefloor.

After catching up with some friend headed back to the dancefloor and in time for the Kick Off set featuring DJ’s Sy, Hixxy and MC Storm. The main arena was heaving from the back of the arena to right down to the front with hardly any space to move especially at the front.

Sy and Hixxy played plenty of dancefloor slammers and were definitely kicking off the party tonight playing stompers from both their own respective labels, Raver Baby and Quosh. The duo were dropping the likes of ‘Power of love’ remix, ‘Be with you’, and ‘Caught up in your love’. Storm set the crowd on fire with his lyrics and amazing crowd hype that he possess. Sy and Hixxy continued to lay down numerous party slammers with ‘Love hits’, ‘Suck my …’ and ‘I can’t wait’.

Following on was the turn of DJ Gammer alongside Dodgee, Dodgee is quite known for his scratching and I was impressed with his skills. Dodgee hooked up his own mixer to the clubs setup ensuring his set ran smoothly. Fruit Club’s resident MC, MC Rude was on and rocking his home crowd along with Newport’s finest MC Wotsee. The pair worked quite well taking control of the crowd.

Dodgee and Gammer’s set featured a mash up of styles mainly hardcore and freeform keeping the ravers bouncing with their selection as they dropped ‘Everybody’s in the place’ remix , ‘Report to the bassline’, ‘Space odyssey 2006’and ‘Let it shine’. Gammer finished the set with some gabba playing ‘Break free’.

Next up was Essential Platinum’s DJ Dougal with Whizzkid MC, looks like these two are working well quite regularly together great combination. With Dougal’s vocally tune selection and Whizzkid’ uplifting lyrics complementing this set very well. Dougal was playing plenty of material featured on the Hardcore Euphoria album with tracks such as ‘My direction’ remix, ‘This is a virus’ and ‘Count the hours’.

Euphony and MC Darkside were on next Euphony was showcasing plenty of his own material during this set as he is also part of the group ‘Heaven 7’. Euphony played ‘Kontact DJ’, ‘Dance me’ and ‘Speak of love’. Vibealite’s MC Darkside was on and was joined by the SAS stage invaders dancing team who were here hyping up the crowd.

It was time for the award winning duo of Darren Styles and MC Storm, Styles started of the set with ‘Castles in the sky’ remix, and continued to play the award wining ‘Save me’ and ‘Report to the bassline’. Styles played ‘Ass down face’ which is sampled from oldskool rappers 2 Live Crew who are known for their notorious dirty lyrics.

All Around The World were here tonight as they were filming for the advert forthcoming Clubland X-Treme album, getting amongst it down at the front with the crowd. Storm was tremendous on the mic taking full control of the crowd and showcasing some of his new lyrics.

Darren continued to play ‘Lost the plot’, ‘Skydivin’ remix, he even dropped in Pendulum and Fresh’s drum and bass anthem ‘Tarantuala’ which got a very good reaction form the crowd. Styles then finished his set with ‘Perfect dreams (sweetheart)’ remix.

Next up was the South Coast legends that are Ramos and Supreme along with Sunset Regime. For those that don’t know the Sunset regime is responsible for quite a lot of hardcore tracks having worked with Hixxy under the name the Anti-Social as together they produced the monster anthem ‘My way’.

On with the show and what a great set these legends played featuring plenty of their own material off their THC records and remixes dropping the likes of ‘C u on the other side’, ‘Touched by an angel’ and ‘Gotta believe’ remix plenty of dance floor slammers!

Whizzkid MC was on stage for the whole of this set and definitely it his own. The ravers were enjoying his mcing hyping up the crowd into a mad frenzy with his lyrics whilst interacting with the crowd who were reciting his rhymes with him. The oldskool masters continued with ‘Horn-E Raver’, ‘Feel the power’ before finally finishing with their ‘Silver waters’ remix.

Well this was my final set of the night and once again Raver Baby completely rammed out the Brunel rooms. There was hardly anywhere to move as the venue was packed from back to front. The atmosphere was once again electric with everyone having a great night with the Raver Baby staff keeping everyone in check

I was once again impressed with the production as the club was transformed with raver baby reinforcing the clubs sound system and re-dressing the venue. The artists were all on form tonight, but I really enjoyed both Darren styles and the South coast trio of Ramos, Supreme and Sunset Regime these definitely stood out for me tonight!

Shouts to Hixxy, Joe, Chris and Mark Lambert plus all the HTID crew, Storm, Whizzkid, Knight, Ramos, Supreme, Sunset Regime, Sy, Styles, Breeze, Dougal (sorry), Ben at up the Cut, Seduction, Gammer, Scott Brown, Wotsee, Rude, Squidgy B, Sarah, Emma and Vinny, Mark, Sam, Bubble and Jellybeanz crew, Dodgee, Chit Chat, Zoë at Fruit Club, Jason Spinback, Al Storm, Darkside, Flyin and Alison.

Big Respects to Sallie, Lou Lou, John Buzz –B, Timmy, Andy, Gareth, Gillian and the Kent crew, Andy Legs, Damo, Hatty, Caddy, Matt KoR, Ad-Cad, Sharl, Jenny juicy, Scott Womble, Rooney and the Shrewsbury crew, Izzy, H100, Danny Smithers, Mrcus Time, Abi and Claire, Hanna, Kate and Kelly, Emma, Chris Mental, Pleasuredome mark and Tessie, Gsus, Jacquie, Katie, Mags and Foggy, Dave the Rave, Clodhopper, JB-C, Rob and Staci from True Hardcore, Sketchy, Andy Sykee, Jayne and Chris Outburst, Wrighty, Brian BK, Rude boy Rob DSI Crew, and everyone else whose names I don't know but faces I recognise.