Hook'd Club Review - July 2008

HOOK’D – SUNDAY 27TH JULY
REVIEW FOR SEENQUEEN


Having torn ourselves away from the Revolver party in King’s Cross, we headed south over the river, but not to our usual retreats in Vauxhall, but to Southwark and the venue known as The Arches, home to well known club XXL. Being only our second visit, we were unsure of our bearings but were pleasantly surprised to find it with relative ease.

Arriving at the stroke of 5 a.m., being the billed starting time, a small crowd was gathering by the main entrance to the venue, some faces we had seen at Revolver earlier, although it was clear from the thumping sound of music, that XXL was still winding down. After a short while, the larger than life character, Mark Aimes, promoter of XXL, appeared at the door recognising us immediately waving both us and the growing crowd through into the venue.

It was clear that the team promoting Hook’d had much preparation to do, as XXL signage was still adorning the walls & ceilings of the bar area & main dancefloor and we sat watching as XXL banners were taken down and replaced by Hook’d ones, huge red balloons were blown up and suspended from the rafters & DJ’s were arriving and ascending the stairs to the elevated booth in the main arch.

So, after being patient for just over an hour, the club finally swung into action, the familiar sounds of hard house/techno that we had been used to enjoying on a weekly basis all those years ago in Trade pumping out from the huge speakers. Billed as a celebration of the life of THE legend, Tony De-Vit, Hook’d failed to disappoint in this regard, literally from the first record on, as virtually every tune took us back to the heady days when the maestro himself commanded the decks at Trade. Whilst The Arches was a very different feel to Tony de Vit’s & Trade’s familiar home, Turnmills, closing our eyes on the dancefloor, the sounds made us feel as though we had gone back ten years, dancing on the spot we used to choose week in week out and whilst far removed from the mellower funky house we have become accustomed to more recently, we fell straight back into the faster paced sounds, just like riding a bike!

By now the crowd was building nicely and familiar faces and scene followers were wandering past us, including DJ’s Fidel & Faye Lanson, Faye bounding up to us and giving us a huge hug and thanking us for our review comments on her work, flattery indeed. This signalled the need for a short break, so moving back into the bar, we bumped into the hunky figure of Oliver M, who had just arrived after throwing the superb party, Revolver, at Scala. Indulging in refreshments, we had a good old chat and catch up with him, reassuring him of many things to do with Revolver, Matinee & Evolved Events and accepting similar praise to that adorned on us from Faye only moments before. Oliver is an enigmatic person and a true professional when it comes to club promoting and in our view, sets a superb philosophical example which many a club promoter would benefit from following.

But, as nice as it was to chat about other events, it was Hook’d we were here for and to celebrate the life of a truly great D.J. So it was back onto the main floor to the resounding sounds of familiar techno beats, blasted out by a collection of familiar D.J. names, including Karim, Andy Farley, Mark Jewell and two names that were synonymous to Trade like Tony De Vit, Ian M & Fat Tony. By now the second room was firing up, with Faye Lanson in charge of the decks, playing out an altogether slower paced musical vibe to the high octane techno sound of the main floor, so it wasn’t long before we were back in the main room and ascending the podium to gyrate and swivel to the De Vit era music tunes.

With further billed D.J’s including Jo Public, Simon Wallis, Phil Hewson and one of our favourite D.J.’s of the moment, Brent Nicholls, whom we had missed at Revolver and who was not due on the decks until midday, we were determined to pace ourselves and enjoy the complete journey of celebration. However, in the excitement of the moment a sudden slip on the podium caused us to fall against the railings, slipping off the stand and onto the floor. Then, while dusting ourselves off, our actions had caught the eye of an overzealous security guard, who approached us as asked us to step outside. Still dazed from our fall, we were the amazed to be told we were unable to re-enter the club, the reason being “our behaviour was suspicious”. Failing off a podium suspicious!!

Through the whole of this embarrassing end to our night, friends and scene faces were pouring into the club, wandering why we were standing where we were and after trying to reason with the door supervisor, it was clear they weren’t going to budge. So, collecting our belongings we limped into the mid morning sunshine of a London Sunday only later realising that our fall from grace on the podium had resulted in injuries including cracked ribs.

Whilst our night had come to a crashing & crushing end, for the period that we were there, we had fantastic time. The Arches, for us, was probably not the best style of venue to celebrate the life of a man, whom for us the cavernous feel of a venue like the legendary Turmills would have been more appropriate and certainly the treatment subjected to us by the security guard, was dreadful. Missing out on the whole of the party was disappointing and especially missing out on our favourite scene D.J. twice in 24 hours was gutting. However, by all accounts the party was a huge success, went on well into the early afternoon and was a fitting tribute to Tony de Vit. Will we visit the next party, of course, although if it is at The Arches, after our treatment there, we may have to think twice. (DISCO MATT)