Fabric’s 13th Birthday

I spent Friday evening lamenting my very poor financial situation and the host of excellent nights I was going to miss the coming weekend.

Fabric’s birthday was the one I really desperately wanted to do as I had been to most or maybe all fabric Saturday night birthday parties since the 7th one I think (forgive me my lack of memory, goes with the territory I suspect).

Story goes I went out for a beer with a very good friend on Saturday afternoon, it ended up many beers, we had a discussion about going to fabric on the Sunday but didn’t commit to anything.

Woke up with a hangover on Sunday, my phone went off with a text message saying, “fabric?”.

Hell yes.

It was about the shortest hangover ever and a few hours later (somewhere between 4pm and 5pm) we were straight into fabric, and straight onto the dancefloor to see the closing few hours of Visionquest.

The first track they played upon entry was a Prince track, I think 1999 but I have next to no knowledge of Prince.  The atmosphere was very dark and moody with virtually no lighting, the dancefloor was busy but there was space to dance.  The music went from more trippy hypnotic tracks to more techno influenced tracks, with a good variety in between and as time went on the full range of fabulous lighting effects came on.

Really good stuff.

Then came Space Dimension Controller (live) whom I had some knowledge of, and played very weird spaced kind of music with next to no beats, so we retired for a quick drink and service, and popped back down around 20 minutes to see that he had almost pretty much cleared the dancefloor, but he persevered with the plan – I do like a good dancefloor clearance…more dancing space thank you very much, and towards the end it was properly going off, and I have to say that I was very suitably impressed.

Sometimes you just need patience my fellow dancing friends, and you will be rewarded.  Needless to say he had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand come the end and a busy dancefloor was reaffirmed.

Then of course, Craig Richards.  One of my true favourites.  Fabric is not the same without him on the list.  No matter whom else I go to fabric to see, I always make sure he is playing.  If he isn’t, I do reconsider.  He just has that reliability mixed with that special knowledge of that very special dancefloor.

And coming on at 830pm, he played a blinder as I knew he would, even my friend who wasn’t previously much of a fan of Craig Richards said he played a blinder, and it was super good, going from hypnotic grooves, to samples of old school house, some 80’s electro and hip-hop in there, at least as samples, and I definitely recognised a few teasing samples of some very recognisable old dance tracks (possibly my imagination?!), not to mention some much tougher beats.

We left around the end of his set – I know when I have had a good time, and it was that good I didn’t want to push it.

The crowd was easily the one of the very best that I have ever known in fabric, and certainly the best I have experienced anywhere this year, such a fabulous vibe in there, some good efforts on the fancy dress, the staff were enjoying it just as much as the punters and well – it was a totally fantastic afternoon and evening.

I would say fabric should do more 30 hour extravaganzas but I’m quite happy with keeping it special.

And it was special.

See you next year fabric, happy birthday x

(oh and 17th for Loco Dice, Guti and tINI, and 24th for Ricardo…shhh don’t tell anyone, I want some dancing space).