Dreamscape 19 – Saturday 27th May 1995

Once again it’s the Bank Holiday and what a wonderful excuse for us all to go out and party. Boy, were we ready for it. The flyer seemed unbelievable. The line-ups for the arenas were incredible to say the least, whatever your taste. This promised to be a night to remember.

We arrived at the Denbeigh Leisure Park to find the largest queue we’ve ever seen at this venue. As usual people were being let into the outside area well before 9pm when the music would start and the doors would be flung open to the delight of all.

Our first port of call. The Sanctuary main arena and Happy Hardcore heaven! The production in this room was nothing short of megatastic. Two huge multi-level platforms at each side of the room. Each with a stack of speakers at the back of them – brilliant! The main stage was the biggest we’ve seen to date and later on in the night it was going to surprise everyone (more on that later). As usual the lights were wicked with the laser icing the cake nicely. The DJ box was set right at the front of the stage which made the DJ highly visible from absolutely everywhere in the arena. All in all we couldn’t find anything to moan about (not that we’re trying to find faults) – so top marks to E.S.P.

Port of call two. Tek No Prisoners, situated upstairs in The Sanctuary. By this time best bud Ade had disappeared. Upon my arrival in T.N.P. surprise, surprise who would be flinging himself around to the sound of H.M.S. – but Ade! Thanks for waiting for me mate! Anyway, once again the visual production in this zone was excellent, the theme was just a little aquatic. I felt as though I should have brought my aqualung with me, Ade said he’d wished he’d brought his snorkel – he has to be bloody different!! The most wonderful U.V. backdrops had been mounted along with plenty of mad mobiles dangling from up yonder.

As already mentioned H.M.S. was rippin’ up wax, both Ade and myself getting straight into things and within ten minutes we were both soaking wet – what a way to start the night. However, once a few people had started rocking one of the decks started jumping. Full marks to H.M.S. a true professional, he battled on under pressure. Eventually production staff came and tried to resolve the problem. Meanwhile H.M.S. continues to produce a kickin’ set even under such uncomfortable circumstances.

Next to grace the decks South Wales own DJ Lomas. The decks were still jumping, Lomas continuing where HMS left off, frustration began to show on his face, but the crowd was still rocking taking no notice of the problems. It was now getting rather full upstairs, enough is enough and the decks were now really playing up. The music went off and the production crew came in who quickly rearranged the decks to a lower position. Everyone crossed everything, and back on came the tunes. Shit! They were still jumping. While the music went on the crew took down the scaffolding around the DJ box and they did something with some tape and Bob was everybody’s fucking uncle! Hip Hip Hooray for Uncle Bob! Massive respect to production for sorting this out quickly, a job well done!

All this high drama and there’s still another music arena to check out – Rollers (A roller convention) for all you Jungle/Drum & Bass massive. Again production in this arena was brill. Unfortunately I was only able to witness Ray Keith who was brilliant. Upon enquiring with several good chums I was well informed that the whole night was totally wild. Everyone playing to their usual high standards.

BOO! I said there was a surprise in store for us, ha ha!! Back in Happy Hardcore heaven Ade and I stood on the balcony and watched in awe as the main stage rose 50 feet or so into the air. The crowd went mental, the whole thing being filmed by M.T.V. What an amazing sight.

By now everyone in the place was having a wicked time, the likes of Brisk whipping the hungry masses up into a frenzy. I (Bri) rocked to Vibes down on the main dance floor. I have been known to moan on about miserable bastards who walk around looking glum all night. Tonight however proved to be different. Everyone seemed to be on one, wicked, smiles absolutely everywhere. I’ve never been in such a happy atmosphere. This is what the scene is about, people truly coming together to have a fucking good time.

At 3am, after a wicked set from Dougal it was time for the prestigious Eternity readers poll awards for 1994. Just when you think that it can’t get any better, it does. Magika announced the favourite DJ of last year and it’s none other than DJ Dougal and the crowd went bleeding mental. Next Magika announced best promoter – Dreamscape (E.S.P.) and the crowd broke the sound barrier. I was rushing like never before, it was absolutely nuts. The noise coming from the crowd was immense, all captured for posterity by M.T.V. Fuck Cloud 9, I had reached the upper stratosphere along with everyone else.

After calming myself slightly, I soon realised that Clarkee was on next. Yes, this was wicked, what more could you want? We rocked to half of his wonderful set then bounced into T.N.P. for the second half of Loftgroover. The whole of The Sanctuary was dancing to the fast, hard Techno, cool! At this point we noticed a distinct lack of people in the T.N.P. zone. This was due to The Sanctuary security not letting people upstairs, we all know about the bendy floor, this is quite obviously the cause of the bouncing needles. It seems there was also a safety problem, so why don’t The Sanctuary sort it out? Strengthen the floor, it is The Sanctuary who own the room, it’s their problem. The promoters hire the whole of the building so it should be in a fit state, S.I.N! Unfortunately the lack of people produced a lack of buzz for the last couple of hours. Even so the musical quality was most excellent.

We enjoyed sets during the night from Slipmatt who sent the place crazy, also Warlock and Alex Hazzard both played well. Best set of the night for us in the T.N.P. was without doubt The Producer & Scorpio (back to back) for two solid hours. True Techno excellence, pity Ade was too shagged to dance. Can’t let good Techno go to waste. The best in the main arena was Brisk with a kicking set, playing to his audience in usual Brisk style. Nothing more required from such an excellent DJ. MC’s who impressed were of course Ribbz, also my man Sharkey (my fave up and coming MC) – watch out!

For those who were feeling the pace, there was as promised, an outside chill-out with the additional fairground rides, although one sounded well dodgy. If you were hungry, the hot ‘n’ cold food stall was available to satisfy your nutritional needs (mmmm).

Everything promised on the flyer was there, well almost. The only thing missing was the friendly (?) NOT security. Every Dreamscape event seems to be better than the last, I think E.S.P. will have a job beating this one.