Riot! Album Launch at The Fridge, Brixton, London

01.07.2006

Featured DJ’s: BK, Ed Real, PHATT among others

‘Saturday night at the movies’ - NOT if you’re a hard house fan or familiar with Riot recordings; it seems they have got a new album they want us to take a look at! If it’s anything like what was delivered on this night - then get yer hands into your pockets and go grab a copy!

The night started slowly as there was absolutely no queue outside the Fridge at the paying or guest list side, it was only just after midnight. This was a bit disappointing as there had been a decent amount of promo going into this event. I had a secret feeling this might happen as hardcore euphoria had been to Brixton just a week earlier and Escape in the park was also on this weekend, plus the England footy match to boot! No pun intended!!!

Despite this both rooms were doing there duty on the decks to create an atmosphere for everyone to enjoy when we stepped in. This was something we could expect from all the DJ’s as everyone had a great set and performed some real excellent track selections and quality mixes. Hats must go off to the above listed DJ’s especially BK who literally tore the roof off! I’m soo glad he got to play to a full room when he came on, as he didn’t hold it back and rammed his own signature tune ‘revolution’ in our face - Top Boy!!!

I see a lot more DJ’s as performers these days and the Riot bunch are obviously well selected as they are not shy to use exhibitionist tactics and start jumping and arm punching when the going gets mental. Some of the tracks used this night were really allowing the DJ’s to create their own atmosphere of antics as they featured massive build ups or looping to give them time to fire us up.

The small funky dirty room was not that busy due to all the big names next door, but it served as a real nice ‘break’ from the hard fast beats next door. DJ Krishna served up some real nice electro style dirty house which almost bordered on prog actually, what a good style. I stayed here for a while as I was enjoying his set so much, but also wanted to see who else would wander in; was it going to feature random people from next door trickling in and out? Or was it some faithful regulars who follow these DJ’s? It was definitely the former as I saw a lot of different people come in and out for a quick fix of the dark side of house and then bounce away back to the main event. I personally think this works extremely well (just cos I like both - he he) and I see Brixton Academy always have a dark ‘n’ dirty house room at the very top whenever they have hard nights on.

All in all a good night - the DJ’s delivered some strong performances and the Fridge slowly got fuller and fuller and the only aspect that suffered ever so slightly was the atmosphere. As previously stated though, a lot of other events were on which meant a slow build up rather than a big bang.

You can see photos from the night in the UKCD Photo Gallery.

Review by Paullifefit