Cocoon @ Great Suffolk Street with Sven, Cassy, Carl Craig & Onur Ozer

A mini-disaster nearly struck during the week when my wonderful clubbing partner announced that she would not be able to make it however I had bought my ticket so long ago that there was no pulling out for me.  I didn’t want to go by myself but I was up for the adventure.

A slight side-track perhaps but beforehand I went to an all you can eat buffet place for dinner, and had lots of gravy.

Yes, even on dessert.

You can take the boy out of the north…

Anyway, come Saturday evening, my dancing partner was clearly feeling as inspired as my culinary creation and we made our way to London, to a new venue for both of us (clubbing by oneself is just not the same).

Having become very used to the middle-class comforts of fabric, neither of us were really sure what we were going to make of Great Suffolk Street Warehouse however it was a super venue, a bit cold away from the dancing areas but more than enough body heat to ensure coats could go in the well-run and secure cloakroom.

I was not impressed with the crap speakers at the Cocoon event with Sven at Brixton Electric that LWE ran earlier in the year, however I am delighted to say that they employed Funktion One speakers and they did the job.  I wonder if my constant pestering did the trick?!  Ideally there could have been some smaller stacks half-way down the main room, though I am not sure of the logistics of that as they would need to be guarded one would assume.

In fact the promoters, LWE can be delighted with their efforts, as can the venue, almost everything ran smoothly, there were no hiccups despite it being a large scale event in London, and there was a good crowd, no queue to get in, enough toilets, just about enough people working the bars…getting the logistics wrong can ruin what should be an excellent night, so definitely appreciated.

So onto the DJ’s.

And there was an excellent choice on offer – Onur Özer is probably my favourite Turkish DJ, not that I can think of any others off the top of my head, and he played a clever warm-up set for Sven, starting off with deeper house but going into tech-house and slightly straying into techno territory in the hour before the man everyone was there to see.  Just as impressive as he was a fair few years ago when I saw him warm up for Sven at Cocoon Ibiza.

And the the main attraction, Sven Väth.  Very quickly into his set the acoustics were perfected and volume increased, and Sven quickly set about sending the dancefloor crazy, and it was off the hook at times.

Annoyingly, my friend and I lost each other less than an hour into Sven’s set and spent around half the time looking for each other, myself going across the packed dancefloor many times, and my friend apparently going up and down the dancefloor – no reception on my mobile did not help matters.

In the end I just gave up and danced the rest of Sven’s set away.  Albeit only lasting 3 hours – I never knew Sven did sets that short?!  Probably the shortest set out of the 20 or so times I have seen him.

And yes he was firing off techno monsters…thank you to whomever posted this video on Youtube.

Actually the one thing that could have been improved was the view of Sven.  A higher stage would have been welcomed so we could actually see him!  Only Sven am I bothered about seeing whilst he is DJing.

Great minds think alike and myself and my friend headed towards the bar the minute Sven finished to miraculously re-unite, and set about wandering the 3 dancefloors trying to settle on something, and we decided upon Cassy and Carl Craig, who we saw out until they finished around 5:30am.

It took a little while to get into them but they were both top notch, especially Carl Craig who was leading into classic techno territory with some absolute monsters, and he got on the microphone at the end to lead into the closing minutes – I don’t recall seeing Carl Craig before although I probably have done, and he was class.  Top stuff.

It is very sad to see so many reports of thefts especially of mobile phones, however it is not just this event that has suffered as I have read many reports of events having been targeted by criminal gangs this year, both in London and Ibiza and I doubt that these are the only two locations suffering, I just happen to visit and read about parties in those places far more than anywhere else.

I constantly check my pockets during a night to make sure my belongings are there and try to keep an eye on whomever my dancing partner(s) to make sure they are not targeted.  I may consider just getting a cheap pay as you go phone if these scumbags are not dealt with as it isn’t exactly necessary to have my smart phone at a nightclub – someone else will put pictures up and videos on Youtube, and most people are better at that than me anyway (my only photo of the night is one of the gravel) – and as if I need to check Facebook…I think not.

May I also suggest that people drop their phones on the floor a few times to achieve the artistically cracked look that I have on my new Samsung Galaxy S3.  I have a unique looking phone that nobody will want to steal because the sell-on value is much reduced thanks to the smashed screen.  Or get insurance.  Or just leave anything you don’t need at home.

And look after each other.

A super enjoyable night overall, would definitely repeat it, worth an 8.5 out of 10.  Maybe even an 8.7.

By the way, the gravy-topped dessert was disgusting.