Hospital records, the home of High Contrast, London Elektricity and Logistics, have always been at the forefront of promoting musical Drum ‘n’ Bass and are known for putting on great nights, whether it is at super clubs like Heaven, Ibiza and now Matter or at one of many provincial cities that host Hospitality.
Tonight’s venue is different from previous Brighton Hospitalities; They have moved out of their residency at Audio in order to present a second room alongside the main Hospital stage.
It’s 10.30, the event was sold out 3 days ago, there are 100 tickets on the door and at least 300 people in the “no tickets” queue outside the club. Luckily my sister and a friend have been there since 9 so I could come straight from work to pretty much the front (cheeky I know!)
As I entered the club, I was immediately blown away by Digitals Function 1 sound system; the separation of the lows/mids was very clear and invited us to dance almost immediately.
The crowd is very balanced for a D’n’B night, lot’s of girls and a healthy age range of 18-30. Everyone here is friendly and has left there attitude at the door, people are here for the music, not to be scenesters, every time a tune drops, I make eye contact with someone in the crowd who gives me that “what a tune, this is awesome!” look.
We spend the first art of the evening in the main room. After a great introduction to the night by Sci Phi, Logistics steps on the decks and the MCs start.
His set is very varied, playing a steady mix of classic tracks and new, hard, liquid and a few deeper tracks before finishing off with some classic old school Photek.
Anyone who’s ever seen Hospital CEO London Elektricity DJ will know that he always plays a great set mixing each track in key whilst building tremendous excitement throughout his sets and managing to keep it all sounding melodic. He opens with Mistabishi’s “from memory”, a beautiful anthemic tune which seems to connect the crowd and has everyone’s hands and lighters waving through the air before dropping and setting everyone raving to the rest of his set.
Room 2 is hosted by sister label Medschool which concentrates on more leftfield artists that blur the lines between drum ‘n’ bass, dubstep and electronica. Instra:mental presents us a very deep style with a lot of retro 80’s synth sounds that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Prince record accompanied by some often minimal but strangely syncopated beats.
The true star of the Medschool room is the German Martsman, playing and eclectic set beginning with some strange dubstep/techno hybrid through half step drum’n’bass ending with some more modern sounding jungle and breakcore. This is my personal favourite set of the night, although most of the crowd are downstairs stomping and singing along to Hospital superstar High Contrast. I did find myself dancing next to Randomer, who excitedly pointed out to me that Martsman was playing his latest track “down in the woods” another interesting take on technoy D’n’B.
To finish the night off, we decide to watch the second half of Cyantific’s set in the main room. He tears it up rinsing out old school jungle classics like Dilinja’s “Massive” back to back with Hospital anthems like High Contrast’s “If We Ever” squeezing the crowd for every bit of raving energy they have left Leaving them screaming for more before playing a couple of jump up tunes to finish the night off. The MCs thank us for making the night extra special and we all go home satisfied with a night of dancing!
All in all, the night was a brilliant showcase of the diversity of talent within the modern Drum ‘n’ Bass scene, showing that there really is something for everyone to enjoy in the genre. This all went together well with an amazing friendly atmosphere to make the night incredibly memorable.
The next Brighton based hospitality will be on the 3/6/2009 at Audio, With:
DJ Die
Breakage
Sigma
Callous
Akademic
MCs: AD, Ruthless, ID
More details at:
Hospital Records
Audio
Brighton Hospitality Facebook
