The last Ram event of a very successful year for Drum & Bass was yet another sell out, with all of the tickets gone weeks in advance. Anticipation was as ever very high, as thousands of Drum & Bass heads flocked in for all over the continent!
On entry of London’s biggest nightclub, Chase & Status had already built a lively atmosphere in room one with a compilation of upfront jump-up Drum & Bass and Dubstep.
The main room line-up attracted a huge crowd, that filled the dance floor all night. However, once again the second room was the one for the educated ravers. On arrival, dark sub basslines were rolling underneath tight drum breaks, as Alix Perez was in control of the DJ booth. Even the second room was completely rammed (mind the pun), and stayed this way even throughout Andy C’s set in the main room.
The Executioner himself, treated room one’s two-thousand-plus crowd to two hours of D&B anthems. Tracks including the Sub Focus classics ‘Timewarp’ and ‘X-Ray’, and Break’s ‘Isis’ all kept the crowd on edge, before Logistics – Warehouse, was double dropped with ‘If We Ever’, sending the crowd into a frenzy, shortly followed by the powerful, driving bassline of Disco Dodo. The dance floor then turned into a mosh pit as ‘Let The Story Begin’ dropped. 32 bars later the unmistakable riff of Mr Happy was introduced with impact, before ‘Machete’ caused the mosh pit to become even more vigorous. It was worth mentioning that Rob Swire lead producer from Pendulum had also arrived to the booth when not billed. This followed Andy dropping one of the new Pendulum tunes that was still a work in progress. Rob was no doubt checking the venue out for his Ear Storm night on the 22nd of Jan.
In room two Nero showcased the electro style of Dubstep. Remixes of ‘Act Like You Know’ and MJ Cole’s ‘Sincere’ created a very lively student atmosphere.
On return to the main room, Shy FX switched the tempo as he begun his set, starting with the SL2 rave classic ‘On A Ragga Tip’. Prodigy’s ‘Outter Space’ and Skream’s ‘Burning Up’ kept the oldskool vibes flowing for the first ten minutes, before back to 170BPM. ‘Heavyweight’ and ‘Ho Bass’ received huge reactions and a straight switch to his anthem ‘Feelings’ gave the females something to sing along to. He also ade use of the acapella version of ‘Original Nuttah’, before changing to the tempo once again to play Major Lazer’s fidget anthem ‘Pon De Floor’ featuring the vocals of Vybz Cartel.
Back in room two his fellow ‘Digital Soundboy’ artist Breakage was already sending vibrations throughout South East London, with some dark, Dub influenced beats, hosted by MC Rod Azlan. Opening with his forthcoming vocal version of ‘Together’ featuring Newham Generals and David Rodigan (now entitled ‘Hard’), he also included ‘Higher’ and his remix of ‘Riverside’ in his set, before dropping Sticky’s UK Garage classic ‘Dollar Sign’ featuring Stush.
Kiss 100 duo DJ Hatcha and MC Crazy D played out the night in room two with the usual dose of Dubstep beats covering all styles of the Croydon-born genre. Again ‘Pon De Floor’ and Noah D – Serious VIP received huge reactions from everyone who still had the stamina.
If we could pull the night up on anything it would be hard, but this months Ram lacked volume. Matter have quite a system most says it’s the best for the job however we felt that it did not quite reach 11 and the low end lacked its epic rumbles that weve experienced only at previous Ram @ Matter nights.
The main room had not cleared all night and was still space-less when DJ Hype played the final set of the night. A selection of Drum & Bass anthems, including some Ganja Records classics brought the night to an un-wanted end. The party went on till well-passed 6:30am…
With a night as well billed as this and catering for everyone whos a fan of the Ram sub genre, this shows that not only is this the best drum and bass night in the UK for vibes, venue and volume but also the most well organized. When talking to many of the ravers in the smoking area one pointed out to myself that Matters drum and bass nights are the only nights that really pack it out. With this I was surprised at especially as drum and bass has always been such an underground culture but it seems now that not only dnb is at its biggest but the pioneers that run the Ram brand are still leading the way and will continue to do so. One things for sure they will have our support every step of the way.
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