Review: Serious 10th Birthday at Turnmills

[Genesis]

Faithless said once: God is a DJ.
I sometimes tend to start believing in that.
I also believe that if this really happened to be true, then he wouldn't be held back by too many choices and fall in such a maze for finding the approriate body to live in.
If God was a DJ, he'd be none but John 00 Fleming

It's rather impossible to speak of the Brit and leaving my loyalty for his sound and admiration for his career aside. Reviewing a J00F set is always hard for I have to be critical and subjective when speaking of a DJ, but still try to set aside that this man is my very top DJ and proved himself one of the very best in numerous occasions, and this time he was no difference at all.
I've just returned from London from my exams, attended my introductory tutorial for my new course (and panicked at how on earth am I going to manage studying for this specifically demanding course with all what my life consists of), been used through having to feed my mates who missed my food rather than missing me, but my journey also had more in its folds than that. It had a lot more than what I expected from Serious' Tenth Birthday in the Turnmills Nightcub at Farrigdon.
I left my wee flat on Saturday the 21st at 5am in the little Irish town of Dundalk. I couldn't sleep throughout the night - guess it's a human thing that you can't get your mind to bed when you know you're flying the next day. Pulling my wheeled baggage behind me on the carved tiles of Park Street's pedestrian way made such a noise at that early hour that I almost feared some drunken lad would smack his empty Bud at my head, so I pulled on some faster steps and got to the empty bay in the main bus station. My fears of the bus not showing up or my having misread the timetable were demolished when an engine's revving finally echoed in my waxy ear lobes. Empty. Minus five degrees celcius. Hopped on and it drove along the M1 but the engine failed in the town of Drogheda. More fears. But comfort came out of nowhere when another coach showed up - to the airport. Hopped on for good this time and got there on time, took my flight, and touched down smoothly in London's Heathrow at around 11 am. I switched my SIM cards from Irish to UK and called Angelo letting him know I'm in London and will be at the doorstep of my old house in about 3 hours. I took the tube to Gloucester Road but repairs on the Piccadilly Line sent me off in Acton. After few hasseling connections between the underground lines that took me all the way to Hammersmith for no reason at all, I got to Gloucester Road. Dropped my baggage and kicked off to Clapham to meet my good old cicilian mate. In a few hours I was back home, pushed something down my noisy belly and helped myself to a Mocha and 3 Redbulls to keep myself up for the night. Although I've been travelling and haven't slept at all the night before - I still wanted to go see J00F. I then took the keys for the flat and met up with Angelo at Marble Arch Station.

We got to Clerkenwell Road well after 10 pm. No queues. Too early. Door was open though. We ran up to the door and went in with no footwear inspection otherwise I would have been denied admission with that boot I had my feet in. We got to the dancefloor and Luke Neville was pounding some sexy sleezy house. I walked around the club snapping some photos for when J00F is over the decks, there's no chance in hell I'm taking my feet off the dancefloor. When I got back, things were hot enough from Luke: fast, edgy, and sometimes a bit techy... quite seductive for me: I was on the dancefloor - the warm up has just started and Luke was one heck of a house DJ. I don't really show up at a lot of house gigs, and when I do listen to house it's normally in such occasions when the warm-up is a bit housey. By 11:30, Luke moved to progressive house, the dance floor was getting crowdier and crowdier and we all seemed to enjoy the set for it was truely spotless mixing-wise. I've no real complaints about the track selection: some tunes were really wicked others were average for me, but it was a good set from an all in all aspect. It was around 11:45 pm when J00F's bold head showed up in the booth - I screamed, jumped forward and flipped out of my mind: it's time! John was supposed to take things over at 12, but I saw him pulling his Seinheiser headphones at around 11:50 and approached the decks.

I felt more like a mosquito at his never-ending battle with the blaring blue light that burns him to death whenever it approached the bulb. Too bad it'd be dead to regret or learn from what it did. In may case, approaching the booth and asking for an admission into it would be returned by a definite refusal, so I didn't ask for any: the booth in Turnmills is too tight, and between the DJ, VJ, and the other DJs waiting their turn to take over: there's no room for any fan or, in my case, J00F-stalker. I moved forward to the foot of the booth and decided to enjoy the show for the minute. John started off with sweet edgy progressive trance, he threw in Whirloop - Modyfing my Earth, then Digital Blonde's Remix of Atlantis vs Avatar - Fiji followed by C-Jay - Chemical Illusion and the massive jaw-dropping Ace Ventura Remix of Switch by Beckers (remember that tune with the vocals Dion?). When Switch faded in, I was swept off the dancefloor along with other clubbers who recognized the fresh promo. John phattened the bass shaking the whole dancefloor underneath our feet when it kicked in straight after the breakdown...

Your just a glamour boy
I'm not your party toy
And I like to Destroy
I give you end of story.
All I really want is you
Don't tell me what I gotta do,
I know that I'm kinda bitch
But now it's really time to switch

Simple as the vocals might seem, it made an easily tracable damage on the dancefloor with John kicking it back in with a mind-blowing bassline. Just when it couldn't get better prog-wise, he looped the vocals into the upcoming gem: Ticon - In the Dirt. Easily one of the best progg-psy tunes ever produced. By this time the dancefloor was packed - we were all buzzed and hypnotized from the edgy Switch effect when Ticon's bassline dropped in with its rising melody: in a split second, John killed the vocals from Switch and punched Ticon in at 142 bpm: superb mixing! The famous Ticon tune made its way across the dancefloor and got to its stunning breakdown. With the melodies rising in the second build-up: John had his arms lifted and starting clapping with the intensively rising effects, he was moving the whole dancefloor with his arms as good as he does with his music. We all clapped up along and just when the basslines would kick in again, he jumped up and smacked his fist at us; in turn, the whole dancefloor jumped at once - chaos! A clearly audible cheer pierced from everybody's throat... from the top of every pair of lungs, louder than the tune's basslines itself, nothing but appreciation for what he did, the dancefloor was waving along with the tune. I went nuts. Psy has just arrived, I couldn't stay still.

After Ticon's massive shockwave at the dancefloor, I approached the booth. The Turnmills has two huge speakers on the dancefloor pumping straight at the crowd at the foot of the booth. I climbed up at one of them and went on dancing on the speaker just infront of J00F. I could see eveything he was doing, but was I really seeing it? Was I really awake? I stayed on the speaker till the end of his set, dancing my arse off, cheering him on, and him cheering us up. He never stopped smiling throughout the gig, takes him seconds to set the next tunes with a bit of an expressionless face, then back to smiley John again. Jumping, screaming, flipping his arms, clapping, singing with the tunes, and simply loving it. Loving every single bit of it. After I climbed up the speaker I had one of the two monitors straight behind my head. The monitor shook my head and the speaker underneath me swept my feet. I was one foot away from John - I couldn't be that close even if I was in the booth with Dogzilla and M.I.K.E. while awaiting their turns and enjoying the J00F splendid set. He played Chakra - On the ground (Sub6 Remix) and in a moment we exchanged looks and we were both chanting the lyrics: I so loved it! Then Psycraft - On the Road, Wizzy Noise tunes, Digital Blonde, Xerox & Illumination - Night Shift almost knocked me off the speaker. I was dancing so hard, I never danced that much or that fast in my life. I felt so euphoric I needed a tune to top things up. I pulled my phone and typed: Wizzy Noise - Radio Silence. I stretched my arm over the decks, he leaned forward and read it then glowed with a smile and screamed:Yea! A few minutes later, Radio Silence was pounding the dancefloor. I went mad and stretched my arm for him so he took it from over the deck and shook it with a huge smile. It felt like a god and wanted more. I never wanted him to stop playing. I checked the time and what felt like 10 minutes was actually an hour and a half. The set was almost over and I tried to smuggle another request. My other tune was his bomb with Astrix - 3rd Time Lucky, but he appologized for he had no more time and already had an Astrix queued up. What was it? He kicked in Infected Mushroom's Remix of Coolio - Perfect closing!

With J00F's set ending, Simon Patterson (Dogzilla) took things over. It was the 1st time I see Dogzilla spinning and boy what a DJ! What a style! Stormy pumping hardtrance at its best. Although I haven't slept for 48 hours, I kept myself on the dancefloor till M.I.K.E. took things over but my camera battery died out so I could snap any photos of M.I.K.E. in the mix.

John 00 Fleming proved me right once again. Proved that he's a top notch DJ. A man of charismatic character, happy, friendly when spoken to, interactive, enthusiastic and most of all: talented producer and DJ! One hell of a night, one hell of a DJ, one hell of a venue. A wicked set by my top DJ. I'm sorry I couldn't lay any dust on John - there simply isn't, a DJ can't be more perfect in his track selection, mixing skills, and crowd interaction. An addictive sound delivered by the man with one of the most skillful fingers in the scene (If not THE very one - keeping live performances aside). Superb set & brilliant sound leaving you lost in words if you could find any, emotions if you could feel any, and visions of a beautiful mystic world if it's anywhere out there. Mind-blowing, jaw-dropping, brain-fucking set... one of the best I've listened to in my 8 years into EDM.

Now... could God really be a DJ?

[samer]

wow! what an amazing review..

welcome back Gen, glad you enjoyed ur night , from reading ur review i got so excited and wish i was there with you!! glad also that you knew many of the tracks played as well! seems ur getting better and better my child! (haha)

cant wait till i c the pics and have a nifty talk with u sometime soon..

as you say: cheerio

[Shy--Ism]

wow amazing review , it took me some time to read it....

I'm glad you enjoyed your night Gen , and i hope you did well in your exams!!

[Proof]

[DIONYSOS]

[Trancelvania]

[pTq]

hmmmm 7amdella 3a saleme Gen .. and now that your back safely i can start planning out the way i wanna kill you from envy .. totrute or not ?? you decide ...
lol
anyways ... i didnt read your reveiw, im sure its unfckingbelievable but for the sake of my health i didnt ... and im not intending to do so ...

im sure you had a blast and it was on hell of a night ... *bitch*