The split had started, jungle had turned into soundbwoy ragga based proto D&B and happy hardcore was emerging from the jungle-techno sound and the scene was changing. I wasn’t very keen on the new style so leaned towards the happier sound that DJ’s like Dougal, Stu Allen and Brisk were pushing. We had found a club in Leicester called Die Hard. If you never went there it was a crazy venue. The main room was breakbeat hardcore and at ground floor level but down in the cellars were the techno rooms. A bit of a labyrinth when flying off your noodle, but a great club. Me and a load of mates decided to go there for my 20th birthday. I set off from home with my mate Andy to walk to my brothers flat to meet up with the rest of our pals, and on the way there we passed a house with a young lady leaning out of a bedroom window in just a bra! Lovely thing to do in itself but as we got nearer she waved, whipped off her bra and flashed her tits at us! Andy was very keen to knock the door but looking at her she must have lived with her parents and asking them if we can go meet her to inspect her norks closely probably would have resulted in, at best an argument, at worst, lost teeth and bruises. We carried on walking and had to go through what used to be a clay pit, but was then a nature reserve. There was a big rock with some funky artwork sculpted into it, and some guy with a red light from a push bike flashing it on and off mumbling incoherently till he saw us, then went into hyperdrive with insane rambling, very surreal. After a while we arrived at my brothers and Andy had to go home to get changed, so one of the girls took us to his house. He ran inside and i got out of the car to get some fags from the nearby shop. I came out of the shop and looked through the window of the car and she had gone, i could only assume she went into his house, so i opened the car door door, sat down and helped myself to a fag from an already opened packet. After a few minutes Andy came out his front door and got into the car behind me. It slowly dawned on me that i had got into the wrong car, and as my luck would have it, the car owner came out of his house, saw me sat there with a shit eating grin and exploded, understandably. It took a while for Andy to stop laughing, get out the car and explain to his neighbour, who eventually saw the funny side. There was only one car so most of us went over to Leicester by train. When we arrived there we got into a taxi which immediately broke down and needed us to bump start it, then the cheeky taxi driver tried taking us some bizarre long way to the club. We knew where it was but he assumed we didn’t so after us moaning to take us the right way we got there and the twat tried to charge us £20. we chucked him a fiver and told him to fuck off or call the old bill, we was happy to explain to them which way he had taken us. Seeing he was onto a loser he left. We got in the club and it was heaving, full on cheese fest upstairs but we headed down to the cellars for the gabba/techno. After a few short hours the girls that came in the car wanted to go home and as we had left our stuff in her we had to go out to get it before she pissed off. The doormen stamped our hands but when we came back they wouldn’t let us back in because we were clearly off our heads…. Had they not looked inside? The whole club was! That was a downer, we had to wander around town till 7am to get the train home, but it didn’t put us off going back, it was a wicked place.
Fantasy island
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We went to loads of great raves during this period, my favourite being at Fantasy Island, skegness (Ingoldmells actually) for NYE 95/96. This is a crazy place for a rave, a big room with rides, watrerslides and shops, and loads of other rooms for different styles of music. the place is crazy. i was off my noodle this night and somewhat confused. There was an MC on stage wearing a leotard, bumbag, black guy with a ‘tache calling himself MC Motivator. I had never seen him before and thought it actually was Mr Motivator. Turns out it isn’t the real one, but i was gobsmacked. Who looks at Mr motivator and thinks “He looks great, that’s the look for me!”? Alos that night i was in the house room and walked past diminutive pop prick Jay Kaye of jamiroquai fame singing “gold” by Spandau Ballet to his mate with his big stupid hat on. That geezer is tiny, gawd bless his cotton knee length (but ankle size for everyone else) socks.
We hadn’t put an event on purely for happy hardcore yet so we decided to go for it, and had a mate who owned a club in Coventry called Capitol Club. He had a regular house night on and let us use the club for our event for an all nighter. The club was only usually open till 4 so this was good news for us, albeit a bit dodgy. We spent a few quid on this one (flyer above) and it looked to be a great night. I got there early to set up as usual and when we opened the doors the ravers started to file in nicely. There was a lot of our crew and loads from Bell green/ Wood end in cov, a rough part of town. The night went swimmingly at first (see casualties stories for the pool table tale) but later on, around 4:30am i was back on the decks when the main lights came on and this ALWAYS means turn the music off, something is going off. The Cov lads had decided they didn’t want to pay for beers anymore and jumped the bar to rob it. The bikers had control of the bar and the whole place kicked off, big time. i was ushered upstairs while the bikers and doormen fought with the idiots, watching it all on cctv. That was the last rave we put on as Utopia, but not the last rave ever, we went back to our roots and underground, back to illegal raves, where the fun was at…..
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