September 06, 2003

This was one of the most poorly organized events I've ever been to. Ever.

I was on the list with the intent to see & support Eighties Matchbox, whose stage time I spent waiting in the queue outside alongside people who'd paid £60 each for "VIP tickets", which apparently earned them the right to stand in the cold for 90 minutes and get shouted at by the police. The security guards ended up giving out so much conflicting advice that the London crowd abandoned all regard for a queuing system and started a scrum sysem instead. My friend and I were handed some pink tickets by others in the queue with the message that "they're only letting in people with these". Some guards then shouted that they were at capacity and the guest list was closed (even though, once we got inside, there was enough room for a football match, and other friends got in three hours later on the guestlist). We eventually pulled our way up and got in off the pink tickets, and stepped inside, waiting to be wowed by the extravagance of fire & ice & tropical sets promised to us...

...and found a room with a few beach huts selling drink tokens (which, when you worked out the maths, meant you were spending £5 a drink, double West End prices). A warehouse room in the back had a half dozen people twitching to some of the worst techno I've heard in a long time, so we squashed into the tiniest room where the bands were playing, set to a backdrop of psuedo-antique paintings (the only genuinely cool thing all night), and a thousand of the most vile people I've ever shared a dancefloor with. This is the Return To New YOrk crowd, mated with themselves for several generation for maximum potency. We caught the last song of Supergrass, waiting through a contortionist act, and finally saw Electric Six, who did their best with a dead audience waiting for Gay Bar before running to the toilets, and the only pyrotechnics of the evening - a few limp fireworks on the side. By the time Har Mar came on I was hallucinating from lack of sleep and a full day of drinking, and left after about two songs, but it wasn't looking very pretty at that point.

Overall, it was a shitty, shitty event, and I advise to you never believe their promises of Hollywood extravagance, and above all, do not waste £60 on a "VIP ticket".