Fantazia Event CDs available

Event Review

Event : Fantazia into 1993
Venue : Littlecote House, Berkshire
Date : 31/12/92

the buzz amongst the reading raving community on the release of the Fantazia into 1993 flyers was immense. everywhere you went in town you'd see people either on route to or from the record basement with at least 1 flyer in hand and a big grin on their faces!

My mates, most of whom were a year or 2 younger than me, were going nuts with excitement. mainly due to being too young to attend any raves outside of reading due to transportation problems. besides, there were raves on at Rivermead at least once a month so it wasn't like they were starved! but Fantazia putting on a NYE party within spitting distance! brilliant!

I remember the endless discussions of what people thought the setup was going to be like, how big it was going to be etc etc...one thing we all thought was that part of the party was going to be in the house itself. a place many of us had been on school outings over the years - they used to have a very coo-el wild west village there but than may have been down to over enthusiastic interpretation of the flyer on our part...

Anyhoo, nye arrived and i set off to meet with everybody. I was actually banned by my parents from attending the event due to their continued displeasure at my raving...so I lied that I was going to my then girlfriend's dad's place in Luton for a party. hehe

arriving at Littlecote - with Easygroove 3rd dimension blasting from the k of sound in my car boot - was awesome. passing people on foot all in high spirits despite the freezing cold weather.   The first surprise of the evening was the car park charge,  it wasn't advertised and it wasn't really welcome either but hey ho.  We dutifully parked up and joined the queue to get into the tents.

Me and one of my mates had decided to go all out and were dressed in all in one white painters overalls with hoods. add to this a pair of white robot masks (with diffraction gratings in the eye pieces - seemed like a good idea but in fact rendered the wearer virtually blind!) and the obligatory white gloves. due to the material of the suits we were both baking in the the queue. so much so that a couple of the caps I had in my boxers actually melted and stuck to one of my knackers!! yummy.

Due to boshing in the queue we all started to come up with minutes of getting in...so off we went to explore the various areas of the party.  All I really remember is being surprised that the so called custom dance arena was in fact some sacking thrown down on the floor. but this didn't matter. it was an outdoor indoor party after all.   The flooring outside the tents was much worse being straw over what me and my mates still swear was horse shit!!

after a quick scout around we made our way to near the front of the main arena and got down to the serious stuff of dancing.

I recall several major things from the night from here on...going on the gyroscope and hearing all the spare change in my pockets go rattling off into the machinery never to be seen again...dancing away with my eyes closed only to open them and find the Fantazia video team right in front of me (I'm on the vid/dvd too in all my glory!)...climbing up the tent supports during Easygrooves set - sorry Fantazia! still makes me chuckle hearing the mc asking us to get down on the tape from the night!...bumping into a load of old school mates who last time i saw them were all uber square, but were now all mega munted!

Musicwise it was all brilliant. every arena was packed with smiling, happy people dancing their nuts off. in particular Easygroove in the 2nd hardcore arena was the highlight of the night. me and my best mate just going for it. loving every single beat and noise. also at the front of my memory is the sound of mc Conrad and mc Chikaboo double teaming during one set in the main arena. his low voice complimenting her higher pitch chatting so perfectly it was amazing. pure class!

The night was brilliant and we all left in such a great mood. 93 was here and it was going to be even better than 92! or so we thought.

The fun, however, was far from over.  Once we'd managed to dig our cars out of the quagmire that was the carpark the drive home was torturously icey if I recall.   After a few hours rest, and a lame attempt at cleaning my car of all the mud, i went home to my parents. getting my story straight of what a nice time I'd had in luton.

My parents however already knew where I'd been due to one of the girls in my car's mum having phoned my house to ask if they knew what time we'd be back from the rave!  D'oh! my parents, annoyingly, decided to pretend they didn't know and asked me all manner of things about the Luton party...which, still off my nut on some breakfast speed, I dutifully lied thru my teeth about. they basically let me hang myself for a good few hours before deciding to tell me they knew...eeek.  Big arguments etc ensued. but they knew they couldn't stop me going to parties so there is a happy ending.

Brilliant night though despite the parental shite. and still those tapes are some of the only ones that actually manage to convey the crowd atmosphere from the night!

DJ Haze