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 Standing at the top of the stairs looking down onto
World Dance it feels like the corridor we have just
passed through formed a portal between the
comparative sanity of icy London and a twilight zone
of strobe like chaos. A sea of partygoers disappears
into the distant gloom at the far end of the hall,
penetrated only by the lasers and video images
emitted from the stage like coded signals from an
alien intelligence. The music is retro house and
this, we discover, is the smallest of the three
rooms. Welcome to World Dance. The heart of the party
lies semi hidden to the left through a high
corridor ceiling. As we draw near the heat comes
in waves, accompanied by throbbing bass emissions
and fragments of light speed breakbeats.
It's still early (despite a running battle with
security while trying to gain entry, refreshing to
say the least in the midst of a second ice age) but
the vibe is frenetic. People have paid a lot of
money to be here tonight and are determined to waste
no time. Except, that is, those stuck in the awesome
cloakroom queue snaking round the indoor fun fair,
hundreds of frustrated partygoers shuffling their
feet in frustration as people emerge sweat-soaked
from the other rooms. Despite the more than
impressive production in the house and old school
rooms, the bulk of the thirteen thousand strong
crowd have come to hear drum and bass. Despite the
handful of happy hardcore DJs in the main room, any
respite from the breakbeats sees many of the crowd
take a breather. Slipmatt opened his set with
breakbeats, almost as if he were hoping no one would
notice the change in music. Bass-heavy, rolling
Jungle is the World Dance soundtrack, stripped down
to the bare sonic essentials. The air born wielding
crowd respond with an enthusiasm bordering on
desperation each time a fresh b-line enters the mix.
The DJs take no chances with their selections,
preferring instead to take no prisoners.
The room seems impossibly huge, the crowd
disappearing to either side into smoky oblivion. I
have an eerie feeling that the crowd could go on
forever, hundreds of thousands, even millions, of
lunatics under one interminable roof. Maybe this
isn’t New Year’s Eve 1996 but 1999 with Armageddon
looming large as civilisation comes crashing down
around us in an sprawling mass of breakbeat driven
chaos.
As Grooverider steps up to take things darker, this
is exactly what it feels like. Adam F’s Metropolis
drops to (predictably) a massive reaction, intensity
growing as midnight approaches. At quarter to twelve
another Adam F tune glides into the mix, the
untouchable ‘Circles’. As the melodic intro rings
out like a sliver of light, the anticipation is
tangible. The tune finally drops to an unprecedented
level of mayhem, people picking up their feet and
lifting their heads as darkness turns to jazz. With
seconds left to midnight, the music stops and the
giant video screens replace trippy visuals to become
giant stopwatches. The room is rammed in every
direction, maybe seven thousand counting down the
dying seconds of 1996. At the strike of twelve huge
flames explode from the stage as the floor erupts
into a mass of smiles, hugs and sweaty handshakes.
Even the most stony-faced junglists crack a grin.
The intro to DJ Hype’s True Playaz Anthem drops,
sounding bluesy and melancholic (more cheers and
whistles) and dancefloor chaos is resumed as Spanish
guitar gives way to the familiar dirty bassline.
Every single person is moving.
Shortly after we emerge into the comparative sanity
of the old school room. Positioned between the main
room and the equally impressive house room a
surprisingly large crowd has gathered here, the
music sounding remarkably fresh. Dating back from
the days before dance music was ghettoised this is
house without frontiers, breakbeat tracks played
next to early techno with a sinister, funky vibe.
Music engineered in a time when the people creating
it could only wonder at the effect this stuff would
have on youth culture. The sound is raw and
dangerous, moving into early hardcore such as Top
Buzz ‘Living in Darkness’.
Sadly there are no DJ times listed anywhere in the
building, so who plays when is anyone’s guess,
unless you are close to the stage or can make out
the echoey MCs in the main room. Perhaps the
organisers assumed that the crowd would be content
to stay in one room all night, although clearly this
wasn’t the case. Past the funfair lies the house
room, impressively designed with an enormous UV
canopy extending from the stage room which hang what
looks like giant tulips. Well, sort of. Above the
stage spins a giant spiral patterned wheel, hypnotic
in the extreme, while on stage the Fetish crew get
up to unspeakable things. The music stayed on the
uplifting tip, strings etc, delivered by the likes
of Brandon Block. It’s easy to criticise this fluffy
style but ultimately it is New Year’s Eve and no one
seemed to be complaining. Returning to the main room
at the tail end of the Hype’s set the man is
scratching it up to great effect, his style catching
the vibe perfectly. Andy C played perhaps the set of
the night, pure, rolling, flexing the dynamic and
working the crowd into hysteria. Rewinds were the
order of the day as Andy increased the pressure with
each new tune, mixing tight and fitting tunes
together like pieces in a jigsaw. The sound system
however was not particularly clean, perhaps the
acoustics of the cavernous conference rooms were to
blame as from outside the bass thump certainly
evidenced the potential of the equipment. Despite
this classics such as Origin Unknown’s Woo-Hah remix
and newer favourites such as Mickey Finn and
Aphrodite’s hammering ‘BadAss’ had their desired
effect. And no, I didn’t hear ‘Valley of the
Shadows’. Maybe it got played when we were out of
the room.
Tonight World Dance reinforced their reputation at
the forefront of the big pay rave promoters. Minor
points aside, everything promised was produced. The
free party massive can moralise about the
commercialisation of rave culture all they like but
at least with WorldDance people get what they pay
for. At home in Bristol a large scale warehouse
party went off but in the phenomenal subzero
temperatures and minus ‘God knows what’ wind chill
factor I know where I’d rather be. The fact that
people had paid considerable sums to be here,
spending upwards of a week’s wages on tonight
(although the bloke out of Hollyoaks we saw probably
earns more than most) meant that people arrived with
a sense of anticipation and a positive attitude. New
Year’s Eve happens once a year (just as well from a
health perspective) and the promoters provided the
nearest possible thing to a glitch-free party. World
Dance ended 1996 as they no doubt mean to continue,
and it seems inevitable that they will take the
majority of tonight's crowd with them.
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