S/O/R do it again

Like the Raindance earlier in the year, this was a bit of a meetup, with people from several corners of England coming together to form the oldskool crew for this one. Present and correct this time were your truly, Matt Clarke (from Back to the Old School), Mike Ainley, Ian Saunders and Chris White (from Pointblank Productions). Having spun some tunes round Chris' gaff, we wandered off to Brum city centre to experience the delights of yet another quality oldskool event.

On entering the venue, the sound of PILGRIM in full flow met our ears. Dropping some classic stuff like "Move Your Body" and "Fairy Dust" this was a pretty good set, though unfortunately we only heard about half of it having got there late.

SLIPMATT was up next, offering perhaps the most obvious set of the night. Oddly choosing to drop several tunes in a very obviously similar fashion to Pilgrim, it was a quality tune selection, but should have been the closing anthems set, rather than one to start things off.

Next up was MISTRESS MO, who again did a top eclectic set that set the pulses racing. Since 1998 she has definitely (in my opinion) improved in terms of tune selection, and this set was no different in that respect. Hopefully we shall see much more from her in the months and years to come.

12 months earlier SHADES OF RHYTHM had done the biz with an excellent set of classic tunes from their back catalogue. A year later, here they were, back again with yet more quality tuneage to set the house on fire. Vocals were spot on throughout, and "The Sound of Eden" had an update to give it some more meaty beats. Altogether a great performance.

It was unfortunate that things from here went slightly downhill. DOC SCOTT was to give an exclusive set, but his tune selection was the greatest. It started off OK, but eventually went into '95-sounding techno, which didn't help things since most people were looking for earlier sounds. A shame.

Last up was the Flashback semi-regular, and yet again RATTY gave another weak performance. This guy once more showed he does not know what tunes to drop to get a crowd going, with some dark stuff of minimal interest being sporadically broken by brief forays into anthem ("Dub War") status on the tune front.

Overall, a good night, but let down badly by the last 2 sets, which should have been more anthemic and handed over to people like Slipmatt or Sy to wrap up things in true anthem fashion.

Roll on the next Flashback, nonetheless.