Slammin' Vinyl
The Que Club
Birmingham
Saturday 12th July 2003

Once again Slammin Vinyl back in Birmingham as they grace the Que club, with their array of stars. It's been 5 months since the last Slammin at the Que club.
Well it was worth the wait.

Arrived in town for just before 9:30 met up with Wilson and we went to the Que club. The queue was quite big as there was a lot of ravers eager to get inside, they didn't open the doors till 10, as Bailey was on first and arrived just as we headed to the entrance.

Tonight was not a sell out, but it still was busy. As people were buying tickets from the box office. Headed straight to the main arena wand was greeted to bass lines that was of the BBC's 1-Xtra's DJ Bailey, Bailey played lots of upfront new material, mainly dub plate pressure as I didn't recognise many of the new tunes that he was playing. As Kool Live is back its good to hear new tunes and put names to tunes these days.

I headed to the Hardcore arena, as tonight it was the Hardcore Heaven Album launch party and was greeted to the sounds of raver baby's UFO. He played a lot of new material as he was mixing off CD's. There were quite a number of vocally tunes along with some tunes which had a break beat feel which I do feel has been missing in a lot of new hardcore tunes for the past year.

Dougal was on straight after UFO, but I didn't hang around too long as Mampi Swift was up next in the oldskool room. This set was wicked as he was playing 97 jungle classics.
As with oldskool people refer it as being 88-92 but now it has broaden a lot these days with a lot of old material to cover. Well I ran into the room and was greeted by the bass line from Trouble one of my favourite tunes on V. He carried on playing tunes such as Quest, Angles (another killer) also he played R-Type, and Dirty Chopper remix. There was no MC to this set, but hiding in the shadows was no other than IC3 as he was raving it up like a true soldier.

Near the end of Swift's set I headed back to the main arena and it was busy as Bryan Gee was on along with the Nu-Breed crew, Foxy, Fatman D and Shortston. It was good to hear them passing the like around mcin back to back it was all good. Bryan Gee finished the set with Screamer, which is a blinder of a tune at the moment.
Swift played another awesome set he started up with some darkside mental tune, which I really liked, he also played some of Formation's Twsited new stuff including bandwagon blues I think (the tune in which twisted takes the piss out of 10 t-minus). Which got rewound and then double dropped with the Beginning from Moving Fusion, his last tune was heavy but i ont' know it .This set was really stompy and dark, definitely for the headstrong.

Well up next was supposed to have been DJ Hype but once again he has let down the Que club faithful. Mistress Mo filled in for him.
She has picked up along way on since her moving on from hard house to playing drum and bass in the last year. She played some quality tunes as she started off with evil streets which got the crowd rocking, she also played the Shy FX's remix of wolf which she played the other night on Kool, which went down really well, she also played an Urban takeover classic Swoosh ya rockin.

I caught the end of Hixxy as he was playing some new tunes then started to player older tunes which worked quite well, the crowd was having it so much that the turntables started to join in with the fun and started to make the records bounce.

Nick Rafferty was on next I'm not a hard house fan so I dispersed along most of the other Hardcore ravers. In the oldskool room and Elis Dee was on playing '92 anthems along side Birminghams very own MC Lenni. Lenni seems to work the crowd really well when he's mcin in a smaller room, does show that Lenni can still rock a party as he's been going on 10 years strong.

Stu Allen was on in the hardcore room playing Kinetic 95 style, this was the set I have been waiting for. He played a blinder of a set playing all the bouncy techno tunes including Now Is The Time, Hold Me Now also the ruffneck classic jiieehaaa, when that dropped the crowd went ballistic. Even though it was extremely hot inside of here like a sauna, I think I'm now starting to get immune to the heat of Que club's sweatbox after 4 years.

Kev Energy was on next I'm not a big fan of freeform Nu-Nrg so I decided to sit this one out and headed to the merchandise stall see what offers they had. Well you shouldn't buy your tape packs straight away as there less than ½ price here some packs that I paid some good money for were dirt cheap couldn't believe it but these are packs that are over 12 months old…. I headed to the chill out room for a well-earned rest

After relaxing my raving feet it was back to the dance floor as DJ Sy and MC Storm got the party into action in the hardcore arena. Sy was playing a lot new material some from up and coming producers fair play, as this is the only way forward and to experiment is good. He also played the Quosh remix of bring me round to love, which I admit I do like. Storm was working the crowd into frenzy as he can only do best.

I quickly went into the drum and bass room and caught some of Shy Fx as he was accompanied by Navigator and Spyda caught him playing Trust me.

Well Mark Eg arrived for the end of Sy's Set, Sy was also to play oldskool next door, the room wasn't busy in here whilst Pilgrim was finishing up but soon as Sy came here the room just got busy. Well it was 5 o'clock and the light was shining through in here felt like raving outside. I thought Sy was going to be finishing were Pilgrim left off instead he played a quality '96 happy hardcore set.
With tunes such as JDS Higher love, Heart of Gold, Shooting Star, Dread land ( which he double dropped with the bassline from Bad Ass quality drop Sy,) and finishing the night with Sound Assassin's Like a prayer remix. Storm was on top again throughout this set hyping up the crowd for the final hour.

Well that was the icing on the cake of tonight entertainment listening to some quality happy hardcore mixed and scratched by the Scratch master Sy.

I was listening too more new hardcore tonight as there's quite lot of new material throwing about. With the album launch for the next Hardcore Haven album being showcased tonight it's probably worth buying. Also having Nick Rafferty was a bit stupid as he ended up emptying half the hardcore room, could have done better having an up'n'comin. The turnout wasn't amazing but this is mainly due to people going on holiday and also there's Global Gathering in 2 weeks time. With another Slammin' in less than a month at The Sanctury , but there was enough people here to make the atmosphere in here tonight cosy.
Well it's the big one in two weeks see ya then.

Well big shout to Mo for sorting out guestlist cheers, also to Lenni, Storm+ Sarah, SY, Swift IC3, Pigrim and Whizzkid.

Also a massive shout to the ravers, Wilson, Leanne, Shaun, Olly, Rickey + Brother, Astro, Scotty (happy B'day) Dave, Del and everyone else I met and forgotten your names shouts to you.