Bangin' Belgians Birthday Bash

What a night at Soulwaxmas! First of all I must thank my amazing missus, Kerry for getting me some excellent gifts this year. I must be one of the most difficult people to buy for but she's done it again and again. Presents awarded this year were: Charlie Brooker's new book, The hell of it all; Star Trek on Blu-Ray; a B+W kasemann polarizing filter (an inspired idea) and Nikon SB900 flash (thanks Kev for the technical advice). I'm a lucky, lucky boy. I tired the filter down at the seafront taking some photos, and although it was raining I was rewarded with a rainbow behind me.

The evening started with a quick buffet and friends (thanks again Kerry) before the mini-bus up to Brixton Academy. An 8 seater with a return journey worked out at £250 (about £35 with 7 of us). So much better than the thought of waiting on a cold platform and multi-taxis. Shame we had to put up with some dull Radio 2 sounds. Amazingly, even after turning up 15 minutes late we arrive in Brixton 10 minutes early.

SW9 bar was our pre-gig venue but our table reservation didn't happen. It wasn't really a problem our Soulwaxmas crew swelled to 13 (with Julian turning up later). It was nice to feel popular! The Academy was just as busy with their cloakroom queues heaving with punters. Just as our group turned the corner, the management closed the cloakroom and diverted us to another having to join the back of the line. Plan B was to stuff them into a wall near where we were dancing.

On Candide's advice we fought our way to the front where there was ample room for us all to swing a kitten and have a half-decent view of the stage. The warm-up DJs (Zongamin Soundsystem I think) before Soulwax weren't anything special. The main reason for us being were Soulwax having seen 2ManyDJs back in June and had missed all their previous gigs so the anticipation for a good one was high. They came on slightly late dressed to impress in sky blue suits starting with either some very new material or remixed pre-Nite Versions. Either way it wasn't what we and the crowd wanted. A couple of familiar tracks went down well and revived the crowd however it all ended so quickly as if to get back on schedule.

Erol Alkan came on to fill the Belgian sandwich. He's always been a bit hit and miss for me and that night was still a dancer's frustration. However much of a technical wizard with a mixer you can be, tricks can easily bore a crowd and the quick-cutting from tune to tune never flows right. Maybe he was being selfish wanting to play all his planned playlist condensed into a fraction of a time.

2ManyDJs thankfully came on in good time with one of the Dewaele brothers riding what looked like a suitcase/lawn-mower shaped motorbike then he tuned in his stage-prop radio. A small set preceded the VJing which everyone was expecting. Both parts of their DJ set were better than their live session. It made up for the night but I just couldn't help that they hadn't made the night anymore special than their gig in June. A few too many obscure and minimal bleep house tracks annoyed me and the VJ set was almost identical to the last one with only a couple of videos we hadn't seen before including Paul McCartney's A Wonderful Christmas Time. Vitalic's Poney and Justice's Waters of Nazarath were the highlights.

The last hour was a surprise really, Mixhell looked like the White Strips with female and male DJing, then drumming live dressed in red and black. A lot of people went home after 2ManyDJs which gave us more room to kick away the plastic rubbish under-foot. The tunes spun were just the tonic and the live drumming brought everyone up into a frenzy especially when another drum kit got rolled on with the Soulwax drummer, then another kit with a Dewaele brother and then a fourth! A great finish for a good night out.

My Soulwaxmas photo set can be seen on the Flickr website.