Unfortunately, as the letters to the magazine suggest, the event’s boxed set will no doubt sound the same as any other JUNGLE night out. For a night with a flyer boasting ‘…..sorry, no Jungle…’

This has to win my vote this year for ‘most piss-poor effort to stick to what the flyer says’. There’s a time and a place for hard Drum ‘n’ Bass/Jungle and this wasn’t it. I don’t know who to blame, the promoters or the DJ’s, but something fucked up in a big way. Take a look at the flyer and you’ll see for yourself. (Unless of course you are lucky enough to have a copy of a second, amended flyer allegedly doing the rounds shortly before the day. I haven’t – nuff said).

For Christ’s sake this was New Years Eve, someone needs to realize that we’re not all on the Jungle bandwagon – what happened to the bit about variety being the spice of life? This scene badly needs variety. While I’m off one, what’s the point of slapping Dougal on first at 6.30pm?

OK I know, he was signed by Dreamscape for the midnight hour, but it would have been better that he had someone to play to. So, as not to appear more of a miserable bastard than I am, I admit Jungle is now here in a big way, but please sir, can we at least hear the music we are expecting to hear? Fuck this, next subject.

Despite my non-stop whingeing, this was a good, fun night. A 12,000 crowd were just waiting for the next ol’ favourite to be spun, ready to work off the final dregs of ’94. DBBS. had the task of seeing us into the New Year and did so with a five anthem string of classics. 12.000 + ‘Happy New Years’ were thrown around, with much smiles, hugs, kisses and other girlish stuff thrown in. Everyone had brought along smiles of one sort or another to wear, and wore them with pride.

Come midnight, the stage exploded, flashed, then showered the front four rows of people with confetti. Pity the poor sods who had to clear that little lot up.

Sorry, can’t hold back any longer. I need to whinge again. Truth is, many people had gripes about the evening of one sort or another – I can only write about what I saw or heard about. This isn’t intended to be a total slate-off of the night, but some heavy shit was going down. I find the mag have heard about the cloakroom. What the fuck went on in there?

I don’t know, but apparently a large number of coats and personal property ‘walked’ during the night. I don’t honestly know to whom responsibility was assigned to, be it the venue owners or the promoters. When you pay someone to look after your stuff for you, it’s nice to find you are still the owner in the morning. Falling that, a fucking good cast iron excuse can usually stop a fight.

Those in the Garage arena stuck to it, and I don’t blame them. Fucking rocking. This area alone must have had at least 40% of the crowd within and I must admit to spending more time in there than I normally would. (Is there such a thing as ‘dark-House’? – one that Garage dudes are being over run by? Maybe it’s just a Hardcore thang).

Good points summary: Good crowd, good quality sound, good last set by Slipmatt (sorry about the needle jump), good ravers souvenir programme (two pounds to you, Guv’nor), good try.

Whingey-bad summary: Cloakroom, no tea or coffee, music (period), no Magika big, slow, cold queue, £25 plus booking fee with less attractions etc. than an earlier event staged here with more things to do, oh and Barney says, “Where’s the chill out?”.