Equinox @ Milwaukees
Friday 9th February 1996 – 9.00pm till 6.00am
Despite the fact that we all live a good 100 miles away, we couldn’t
resist the urge to visit what is now the longest running allnighter
in the country and, previous home to both Helter Skelter and ESP.
Well at least two of us that is, as Liz has been a devotee since
1993.
You could say the journey up there was quite eventful with the usual
M25 standstills (the road is a joke), together with the weekly M1
accident – isn’t rush hour traffic fantastic? We did eventually
reach the club at around 10.30pm after an impressive display of high
speed driving skills through the Bedfordshire countryside.
Once in, after a friendly greeting by the Milwaukees security, who
have worked there as long as most people can remember, we were a bit
surprised, we were a bit surprised at the size and layout of the
club itself – but anyway size isn’t everything is it?
In the old days the club only had one arena playing Hardcore, but
now as music styles have developed they have catered for both Jungle
and Happy Hardcore by creating two separate arenas. Along with this
you will find all the other facilities a club should include – a
quiet and cool chill-out room, clean toilets, comfortable seats and
tables for reclining on around the edge of the dancefloor, platforms
for dancing on, a well stocked bar with added bonus of hot food and
drinks, not to mention very ample and secure parking – all spot on!
Unfortunately by the time we arrived Randall had already played
because of a prior booking in Swindon, a shame really because his
set at AWOL a couple of weeks back was quite literally the dogs
bollocks, however, the next DJ – Steve-E Wonder, made up for our
disappointment. Steve played a storming set, dropping all the top
tunes of the moment and showing some superb mixing skills which
would have hyped up any crowd, though it was a shame that the club
had only just started to fill towards the end of his set. Watch out
for his new tune, out on February 10th. MC Dream Dastardly also
supplied a fountain of lyrics, that flowed out a tad too much in our
opinion over Steve’s set. Meanwhile, in the Happy room DJ De-Luxe
also played a solid set, but suffered the same problem as Steve E
Wonder in the other arena.
At this point in the evening we were introduced to Des the owner of
Milwaukees, while Liz sampled the sounds of Fabio in the Jungle
arena. He kindly gave us a full insight into the running of
Milwaukees. The club strives to keep the vibe of old, the vibe which
has been associated with Equinox since its opening nearly six years
ago. I am glad to say that the club has not lost it either, the
thing that struck me most about the club was its almost family
atmosphere, something that is most definitely lacking these days.
Des puts this success down to sticking with the way he’s always done
things. The security team being a prime example of this, he only
hires friendly mature security, security who can take a joke or more
often give one out – sadly another thing lacking from nearly
everywhere these days. Milwaukees caters for its’ customers and all
the features mentioned above add to keeping the club at the top as
we move into the future. In addition to all the comforts of the club
there is the important issue of the sound system. Des has provided a
first class set up for the club which he is continually maintaining.
There is a true 25K rig powering both Cerwin Vega and JBL speaker
systems in both the arenas, so quality sounds come as standard –
just put your bottle of beer on top of a table and you’ll see what I
mean. Another bonus of running for so long is that most of the top
DJ’s have been visiting the club for years and have a very laid back
relationship with Milwaukees, visiting DJ’s often have a good laugh
while playing there. However, this does not mean the club is
dominated by resident DJ’s as Des is always ready to give anyone a
go and encourages the emergence of new talent – this was the club
(when it was run by ESP) that gave Dougal his first break.
Milwaukees will also be running a House all-nighter on Saturdays
starting in the next few weeks, for more details see the flyers
which will be out soon. All in all I think the one thing that stuck
in my mind from the chat with Des that best sums up the club was
this comment, “Milwaukees is an attitude free-zone and it always
will be”, with a policy like that how can you go wrong?
Anyway, back to the music. When Fabio arrived it had gone past
midnight and the crowd had grown nicely. As per usual with Fabio the
style was smooth, with a set including tunes both new and old which
started the atmosphere rolling. As this point Juiceman and Hooligan,
Milwaukees resident MC’s, stepped up to accompany Fabio’s set. Their
performance all night was a text book display and they make a very
good partnership. Fabio dropped tunes like LTJ Bukem’s “Music” in
between a more up to date selection of Drum ‘n’ Bass, which
thoroughly pleased the crowd – classic tunes are ageless.
At about the same time in the Happy arena the Fat Controller had
kicked off his set, and by this time the crowd had also grown a bit
larger. His set was a fine display of fresh, stomping, Happy tunes
which he mixed out in style. I honestly can’t remember seeing anyone
standing still during this set and rightly so.
With the time approaching 1.30 it marked the beginning of Donovan
‘Bad Boy’ Smith’s set. Donovan altered the pace a little and got the
crowd stepping a little harder with a more tearing selection.
However, there is a little confession we must make – 15 minutes was
all we heard as so often with chillouts, the conversation proved so
engrossing that we lost all sense of time! Anyway, those who did
hear the set said it was a class display.
After that minor hiccup it was back to business, Food Junky style.
We personally had not heard Food Junky since his ‘legendary’ World
Dance – Easter 1994 set (at least in our opinion) and therefore
expectations were high. Needless to say there were met, but why
hasn’t he played at any World Dance events since Summer 199? – Sort
it out WD! Although the music changed in the last two years, his
style certainly hadn’t. Food Junky mixed and blended a delectable
feast of fresh hardstep sounds. Judging from the rest of the crowds
reaction, they loved this one as much as us – there wasn’t a single
person standing still, everyone really lost it!
Half way through his set, Dem headed for the Happy arena (we’re
thorough reviewers here at Dream), she walked in half way through DJ
Swift’s set, and never came back! Swift played a stormer, an
excellent selection of Happy anthems mixed with more recent ‘Bouncy
Techno’ tunes. And his mixing was superb I must add. After the
exodus of people to the Jungle room, this left a rather sparse
crowd, but they showed their appreciation nevertheless by going
wild, well at least Dem and the other three of four people in the
room did!
The Fat Controller had to play the final set as Vibes was unable to
make it back from Blackpool in time. This time around, the Fat
Controller mixed a selection of old and new tunes and was also open
to requests. Again, strictly speaking the room wasn’t full and at
one point Dem was on a solo mission, but throughout this final set,
he kept his head up right to the last.
The final set in the Jungle room witnessed Ray Keith touch down and
let’s say the best was saved to last. We said Food Junky’s selection
was fresh, but it has to be said that this was fresher. Ray set the
place alight with some cutting edge Jungle which stretched the bass
to the limit and there were definitely a few dubs in there, none
better than the Drum ‘n’ Bass remix of Top Buzz’s classic ‘Living In
Darkness’ – what can I say, pure class. Ray kept everyone moving
right to the end, with Juiceman and Hooligan hyping it continually
and even after he’d dropped “Set Speed” as the final tune the crowd
continued calling for one more. Unfortunately, that was it though
and the evening was drawn to a close, too soon for our liking, but
that’s a life, not to mention licensing laws!
Altogether we thoroughly enjoyed the visit to Milwaukees, Equinox is
a class night, with top class DJ’s and a top class atmosphere. It
definitely gains our seal of approval and we hope it continues for a
great many years to come.
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