Two giants of contemporary house go back to back to celebrate the release of their DJ Kicks album.
I can hear the thump of a deep soulful groove through the door of the Hackney warehouse. Inside the boys from Soul Clap are going back to back with Zev and Gadi of Wolf and Lamb to promote their DJ Kicks album; this is a line-up curated in my dreams and I've rarely been as excited for a party as I am tonight.
Opening the door and hearing Loose End's 'Hanging on a String' puts a Cheshire Cat-style grin on my face, and while the sound really isn't the best, it doesn't stop the early crowd getting a buzzing dancefloor going. What follows is a journey through some of the best groove-laden tunes, from hip hop to house, old and new, which remind me why I'm such a fan of all four DJs behind the decks. So far, so perfect. When MAM's 'Crushed Ice' drops, followed by Chemise's 'She Can't Love You', I seriously question whether I've died and gone to dancefloor heaven.
After the joys of the first hour and a half the tunes get deeper, then deeper still, then so deep I have to take a breather for air. The room is filling up, with hordes lining up outside. And with only one door for both the entrance and the smoking area, getting in and out of the venue is proving difficult and time-consuming. I come back inside hoping for a bit of life in a pretty deflated room, but I find the tempo slowed down even more. “This is all a cunning plan,” I say to my friends. “In a second they'll drop a bomb and it'll go off.” Low and behold, after a while Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive', the soundtrack to a thousand hen nights, begins. If you're going to drop a big disco floorfiller I can think of a few better choices than simple wedding DJ material, but it's better than nothing so I get back on the floor and throw my arms in the air like a character in a Sandra Bullock rom-com. Unfortunately, after that, it's back to square one.
I don't like to look down my nose at anyone. If you're in a club and on the dancefloor it shouldn't matter where you've come from or what you're wearing because we're all there for the same reason, but tonight it's hard not to notice an air of unfriendliness that's been brought in by a bandwagon of suburban clubbers who don't seem to be interested in the party at all. Shoving, dirty looks and general hostility makes queuing for a drink the most unpleasant 20 minutes of my weekend.
Musically there are one or two brief lifts, but as the night goes on I find myself standing on the side of a stagnant dancefloor looking at my friends until somebody finally says the dreaded word, a word that I never thought I'd hear associated with Soul Clap or Wolf and Lamb and a word I feel slightly guilty for repeating: "bored”. The DJs seem to be having their own party which looks a lot more exciting than what's happening on our side of the decks, and the fact is we just aren't having fun. From the conversations I have outside it seems not many others are either.
Just as we're queuing up for our coats the OOFT edit of Dexter Wansel's 'The Sweetest Pain' draws us back to the floor. Unfortunately the second wave only lasts for one tune and a slow-tempo RnB track marks our exit. As we walk out the comments I'm overhearing aren't positive, from “biggest anti-climax of the year” to “they're just taking the piss now”. And although it pains me to say it, I'm inclined to agree
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