Brighton City Festival // Various venues

Photography by Eliot Gill. Do you need a photographer for your event? Please contact 07804259916 or email mrichter@brightonfusion.co.uk

The night
It’s not everyday we find ourselves running from West Street’s “Tru” to the safe ground of the Concorde 2. Yet tonight was different: tonight was the Thursday of Brighton’s first city festival.

The Brighton City Festival is the brainchild of Ocean Room’s main man and general Brighton club personality, Ben Gill. The line up was a great achievement for Brighton and the concept went down smoothly and without issue. One could go to a participating venue, pick up a wrist band, and could then enter all included venues for the duration of the night.

And so it begins.

We take a cab to Creation. Creation has recently been treated to a revamp. It has also gone down the path of other “cool venues” in not spelling its name correctly. The new Creation — or “Tru” as it’s now known — is situated next to the old Standard, which has been renamed “Kulture”. Even for the most moronic of individuals, it has to be evident that these marketing moves are designed to entice their target market even more. We shall refer to these people within their target range as pricks.

Tru looked slightly cleaner then when it was the Paradox or Creation but no amount of paint or disco balls can cover up the sheer horridness of the venue or the clientele. And they certainly went for gold, hanging a wide range of glittery disco balls from the crust-infested ceilings. We were here to see Soulwax again – but try and put aside the chequered-shirted thugs on display? Forget it. Our photographer took his camera out of his case and an uproar of pricks suddenly mobbed him, demanding they be photographed. Only in Tru could such an event occur. Most people hate the photographer — after all, no one looks that great in a club surrounded by flashing lights. Our first few shots should demonstrate what was encountered. Some people even requested that they be paid £5 for a photo – sadly these shots did not make it onto the Brighton Fusion website. Life is tough, especially in the “hood” otherwise known as Tru.

As we squeezed passed the inhabitants in the “hood”, Soulwax were setting up. They kicked off with their remix of Felix da Housecat’s “Rocket Ride”, a fun track three years ago, but now it seemed a little overplayed at this point. They hit their usual set list of Daft Punk’s ”Robot Rock”, “E-talking” and their live version of the Gorilla’s “Dare”. The thing that made the situation a touch dire was the lack of atmosphere. The sound system was a vile as always, which almost made me feel pity for Soulwax who had clearly dry-cleaned their nice white suits – a waste maybe.

At this point, I retired to the toilet. As I sat there excreting on to two floating bottles, I heard a sample of 808 State’s “Cubik Olympic” — a tad phased, I realised enough was enough. The toilet was a mess and the people where not much better. ‘Vodka would be the cure’ I murmured to myself. I queued and waited patiently. It was finally my turn. After being charged £8.50 for two single shots of vodka, I’d had it. That was the last straw. I could handle shitting on a bottle but being financially accosted was just it. We exited the club, leaving the array of beautiful Martini drinkers to lark about. We had safely left the “hood”.

We pulled up to the Concorde2, already to a much more familiar crowd. Suddenly recognizable faces started to pile into the venue. This was a much better situation. Underground Resistance were busy working the stage. Not insulting UR, and even giving them the utmost respect, we just didn’t feel the vibe in the main room. We chose to huddle in the bar, mingle, smoke fags and wait for Garnier.

When Garnier made his way to the stage, a majority of the crowd moved to the main room. It wasn’t that long ago since we’d seen Garnier at Audio, and he provided a great night. It would be interesting to see how the man would hold up from the view of a person seeing him for the second, or even third time. Laurent Garnier these days sees his job as “educating and entertaining the crowd”. He’s been quote as saying: “I’ve always been very open-minded”. It’s this self-created job as a teacher that seems to give him his DJ style. A few flaws do follow, but the man is technically excellent as a DJ — his mixes are clear, concise and fun. He’s a showman who never goes off key. He’s constantly fiddling with the mixer, eyes closed and deep in thought, he brings in thudding breaks, synth-sounds and dark beats. He is a prime example of a dedicated professional DJ. He carries this off with such ease and style that he is great fun to watch.

It was at the point when Garnier was trying to “educate” the crowd that was possibly his only flaw on this night. His track selection was a little repetitive as a result — you could almost tick off a list of tracks he was guaranteed to play. Alas, we shouldn’t let that take away anything from the man! He’s a bit like watching the “Sixth Sense”: you know what’s gonna happen all the way throughout.

Sticking with true LG-style, Garnier broke into d’n’b at around 3:30am. Throughout the night, he’d seamlessly mixed genres other DJ wouldn’t have an idea about doing. I love Laurent Garnier: his productions are seminal, he’s a great DJ and entertainer, I would definitely go see him again, and I would, more importantly, recommend him to any LG virgins.

Around 4am, Garnier was off, but returned for one more track due to high demand. I’m sure, if he had been allowed, would have happily played for hours more. This is his job, and unlike many new school DJ’s, he has mastered his art and isn’t tied down to a one-hour set on Ableton.

We all had a really good night. Ben Gill has succeeded in bringing something fresh and exciting to the Brighton scene. Hopefully other promoters will follow in tow. The only criticism I can really see of the event was the slight misdirection of its promotion. Many fliers had been handed out stating all the bands names who should be performing. What the marketing failed to point out was that these were to be DJ sets. A slight short change for the Indie market in Brighton. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you are not a DJ then don’t DJ. A great night for techno, a bit of a fisting for live music/Indie.

If we could do the whole night again, we would miss Tru completely. Shame we missed Green Velvet and a few others, but without published set times, the whole festival was confusing. The website said times would be published but this never surfaced. Oh well — maybe there will be a next time??

Oh, and who gives a fuck about Westwood?

Words: Marek the Czech

12►