Jamie Jones (and others) at fabric 24/09/2011

I have been wanting to see Jamie Jones for 2-3 years now and have consistently failed to persuade any of my many clubbing friends to join me, and my frustration got to the point where I decided that I was just going to go by myself.

However, I did in the end have some excellent company.

I was fully aware of the amount of hype that had built up around him in recent years, especially as he is one of my favourite producers over the last few years with countless fantastic tracks, a super album and so many amazing remixes, so I did have a little though in my mind that maybe he was over-hyped, so I had to take an opportunity to experience him, especially as I missed out on seeing him at DC10 in Ibiza a couple of weeks ago which I had long pencilled in to do.

Upon arriving at in Farringdon, I could sense the excitement, an even higher level than usual and I have seen some real superstars in my time there; Sven, Ricardo and Soulwax (back in 2004 anyway) are three that instantly come to mind as having a mass of hysteria around them at the times that I have seen them at fabric and Jamie Jones had even more hysteria than I expected, and an even longer queue than I expected, even for those sensible enough like myself to have a fabricfirst membership card.

By the way, if you go to fabric on a semi-regular basis and don’t have a membership card then you are just being stupid.  Sorry, but you are.  You are missing out on queue jumping (some friends without tickets queued for nearly three hours…they did plan to get tickets but they sold out before they had decided for definite to go), great CDs and a super-warm sense of belonging.

Danny Daze was on first from 11 to 2am, and played a superb warm-up set, absolutely perfect, getting the crowd in the groove without playing anything too peak-time, one of my favourites was Ragysh by Todd Terje, but there were many other highlights, especially towards the end of his set when he played his own track, Everything, which is easily one of my favourite tracks of the year, it was one of ‘those’ fabric moments – followed up with Donna Summer.  Superb.

I didn’t like his cardigan though.

Craig Richards was on next in the main room, and I do have a huge amount of admiration for Craig Richards, but I would personally have preferred him first with the main room having just exploded towards the end of Danny Daze’s set.  But back to zero we went with a very chilled out set with lots of disco and some very deep house.  At times it did send me to the bar and to other rooms to investigate, as it did many others.  I don’t argue with fabric for their line-ups or Craig Richards for what he plays as they have respectively run and grown one of the most successful nightclubs in the world over the past 12 years and I am in huge admiration.  But the odd more exciting moment wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Seemingly everyone had the same idea about 445am, to head to the main room and it got exceptionally crushed for a while so me and my most excellent dancing partner had a little time out on the stairs to chill out until it inevitably quietened down a fraction enough to dance.

However we soon ventured back and his set was truly amazing, absolutely 100% lived up to the hype and then some.  I don’t recommend that anyone else goes to see him though as I want a bit more dancing space next time – you don’t need to see him, stay at home 😉

We didn’t quite make it until the end of his set, so I missed finding out whether he played the ubiquitous ‘Hungry For The Power‘ – probably my favourite track of 2011.  Strangely though I could hear it in my head on the way home, or at least I thought it was in my head until I realised that my ipod-type thing in my pocket had switched on without any instruction from myself (except perhaps psychically) and started playing it.  How bizarre.

One noticeable thing was the English contingent in fabric – normally it is about 50/50 split English/elsewhere, sometimes for example when Ricardo is playing it seems like I am the only English person in there.  On this night it seemed 80-90% English, so perhaps the Jamie Jones phenomenon is still to transfer to other countries?  And a large proportion of women on the dancefloor which is preferable to a sausage-fest that fabric (and most clubs) can be sometimes.  Girls like Jamie Jones.

In summary, this was a superb night, far out-shining my very high expectations and I will not leave it 2-3 years to see him again.  I actually enjoyed it more than Nina and Sven at Cocoon, Amnesia a couple of weeks ago I think which is quite something.  Jamie is probably my third favourite DJ now behind Ricardo and Sven and I wouldn’t rule out him becoming my favourite one day, though he has some way to go to match their experience!  Ask me in 10 years time.

A truly superb night and one that I will be smiling about for a long time to come.

Next is Art Department & Maceo Plex on 8th October, and Ricardo for the 12th birthday on 22nd October.  There are others playing that I really want to see too on those dates but you can look on the listings if you are curious.