Fabbers with Deetron, Craig Ricards & Eats Everything

It’s been a while.

It is a rare event that I persuade someone to head into
London or other out-of-town clubbing locations nowadays.  Various reasons – my main wonderful clubbing partners
spends about 48 weekend a year studying, my life does not revolve quite as much
around clubbing as it used to and the local scene in Reading has drastically
improved in the last 18 months.  That and
my burgeoning superstar DJ career – DJing does indeed seem to be even more fun
than dancing – why did I not learn 10 years ago?!  My reputation is so great now that I even get paid sometimes in drinks tokens.  Tiesto must be jealous.  Anyway enough of my ego.

So my two-week London clubbing window has come around and
where else could it be but fabric.

Who was on the line-up was not of consideration, as long as Craig Richards is on the bill, that is all I care about.

Upon arrival it was straight into room 1, well…after 30 minutes of various queues and other preparations.  In probably my most unnecessary sentence of my blog, Mr Richards did not let us down, playing the perfect warm-up and the best set of the night by some way – some luxurious slower, groovy house beats stick in the head and some bass-influenced tracks in particular causing an earth tremor underneath.

We saw a bit of Mr G who was good but went into room 2 for Eats Everything.  The heat sucked out a fair proportion of my energy – it was boiling hot in there, I really enjoyed the music but couldn’t stand the heat for long.  One assumes fabric was trying to keep their European fans happy which probably well out-number us northern exiles who after 15 years of living in the south still cannot handle anything above 20’C.

Back into room 1 for Deetron and I didn’t quite connect to his set.  Some really good tracks played but totally killed the mood with an almost DJ Sammi-esque piece of cheesy trance.  I am all for some of the really nice melodic deeper sounding trance around at the moment but this was a vomit-fest of a track.

It was a bit all over the place.  It was still enjoyable but I much prefer Deetron as a producer than as a DJ.

I only lasted until 7am before tiredness kicked in.  My stamina not helped by a late night on Friday, followed by all-day drinking on Saturday with two consecutive sets of sporting heartbreak.

The crowd at fabric was an improvement from some recent occasions, less sleazy types (maybe they have worked out that fabric is about 80% guys, not exactly playing the numbers game), even I was chatted up on a couple of occasions – must be the increased sex-appeal from my mullet.  “I love your t-shirt, want to buy me a drink, I only have 50p”.  I am sure plenty of people would be daft enough to but I would rather donate my spare cash to those in the Philippines instead of those not drunk enough (yeah still on my to-do list!).

We did meet some really nice people too, some equally passionate about the music.  It does always tickle me when someone comes up to me in fabric and tells me they read my blog.  Though at first I thought he said “do you own a club?”.  I wish.  Ego inflated a touch more.

Roll on next Saturday for Sven Vath at Cocoon, London.  After all-day drinking with my Dad in Manchester at the Rugby League World Cup Final.  I’m up for the challenge.  Sven, if you are reading (I know you read my blog when I reviewed Cocoon In The Park a few years back), I will happily accept a lift in your helicopter after you play Warehouse Project that evening on your way to Building Six.

Just a thought.