Perhaps it’s due to its size, but for whatever reason I never enjoy how jammed and crazy Dublin gets the night of New Year’s Eve. Actually, your average Saturday night out in Dublin is pretty jammed and crazy, but the dreaded NYE pushes it just slightly past bearable for me, so when the Diston guys invited me up to play in Belfast for New Year’s Eve I was on the Enterprise train up to Belfast in a flash! The Diston lads (formally Electrotoxic) brought me up twice before, to The Eglinton Bar in 2006 and to the Menagerie (which has unfortunately shut its doors recently) way back in 2005. I got the 6pm train up so it was 8pm when I finally arrived at Belfast Central where I was picked up by the lads, a quick detour to an empty off license (if this had been Dublin it’d have been packed!) to appropriate two crates of Tennants Lager and then we were on our way to The Front Page Bar.

Unlike Dublin where our backwards licensing laws means we can only serve alcohol until 2:30am, in Belfast they have their own special even more backwards licensing laws which mean their nightclubs can only serve alcohol until 1:30am! The flip side of this is that people tend to turn up earlier for gigs than they do in Dublin, the Diston guys started the music at 9pm and there were people actually arriving then, with a healthy crowd forming by 10:30pm. Up in Dublin you’d be lucky to have a half full dancefloor by half past midnight!

After a dodgy few minutes when we all thought Paul Iso9’s laptop was broke, Bew started things off by taking us on a bus tour through electronica land while I scoped out the bar for a pack of Tayto. Iso9 was up next himself with a dubstep influenced Traktor DJ set. I actually had a funny dubstep related moment with a guy I met there (hi Conor!), when he found out I was going to be playing he tentatively asked me what my opinion on dubstep was and seemed very relieved when I told him that I found most of it really boring. (but that’s a whole other discussion) :) Deadman (whose couch I would be sleeping on later!) was on next with yet another laptop set, this time things veered heavily into breakcore waters, he kicked off his set with the Duran Duran Duran remix of Yazoo’s Don’t Go, I then got distracted by a pair of pretty Canadian girls (sisters!) but wouldn’t have been able to trainspot a lot of his set anyway.

Nez was on just before me and guess what? Yep, another laptop, this time Ableton Live instead of Traktor. The fact that I was the only guy using vinyl is definitely a sign of things to come I think! Nez was on before me the last time I played up in Belfast and he seems to own all the same records I do (hey, he’s got good taste!), his first track was Radioactive Man’s “Sight and Sound” which I’d been planning on playing so I gave him the backwards peace sign. Then he played Cursor Minor’s “Hair Of The Dog” which I’d also planned on playing, that earned him another backwards peace sign and also a stern word. He also played some new Tipper track that’s not out on vinyl (that’s cheating!) and had the place all mad and sweaty coming up to midnight. At the turn of the clock some other dude (sorry I forget your name!) had prepared a special “Countdown Track” which involved a robot counting down and then a load of Venetian Snares style mentalism, I tell you one thing, they love their breakcore up in Belfast. Where I’d usually play in Dublin (a catchment area that’s shrunk regularly since 2004) it wouldn’t go down well at all but up in Norn Ironin’ they go spastic for the chopped up Amen action! It was a tough track to follow seeing as I’d be taking it down about 40 bpm, but I kicked things off with Electric Soul - “X Squared” and they seemed to dig it. Then it went like this: Radioactive Man - Manwich (new one on Control Tower), Technasia + DJ Godfather - Ghetto Freak, Anthony Rother - Don’t Stop The Beat (this never leaves my bag!), uh, the order isn’t right but I also played DJ Omega - Shake That Thang (313 Bass Mechanic Remix, they didn’t seem to like the ghetto booty stuff that much though!), Professor X - Professor X Saga, then it went a bit more techno with Surgeon - La Real, Oliver Ho - Jack Your Body, DJ Funk - Work Dat Motherf**k, then the classic Squarepusher - Red Hot Car (you can’t go wrong in Belfast with this track!), and a load of other stuff that slips my mind right now, I finished off with the mental folk stylings of Pleated Lemon “Cocks & Fannies” which is on the nutso Hand on the Plow record label.

Iso9 then finished off the night in glorious 180+ bpm breakcore gabba style, I’m pretty sure I heard some Hellfish and/or Producer in there. They’ve got Hellfish coming over to play on the 23rd of February. Expect a lot of sweaty bearded men with shaved heads up the front for that one! Unfortunately the music was shut off pretty soon afterwards but these guys had already got a party sussed (and who’d refuse them with their two crates of Tennants and a possible four litres of Buckfast between them all) which we all headed to via a taxi which we picked up after a mere five minute wait. (try that in Dublin at 2:30am on New Year’s Morning!)

So overall that was probably one of my favourite New Year’s Eve parties ever! The only down point would have been the nasty weather, which was exactly the same as Dublin’s anyway! The community of people into the weirder end of the music spectrum up there seems healthier than ours, I felt I could get away with playing a more varied set up there than I could down in Dublin nowadays, it’s not often I get to mix equal parts techno, ghetto booty, weird ass electro and chopped up Si Begg breaks into the one slot and not empty a dancefloor! So thanks to the lads for bringing me up, it was a pleasure as always. :)

Some videos of the night courtesy of Kev:

DJ Omega being mixed into Rebus Tape

DJ Funk being mixed into Oliver Ho

Classic Squarepusher! (audio’s a bit distorted)

My second last track was Cursor Miner - Sport of Kings you can see Iso9 standing up there ready to start his set while I’m out of shot scrambling for that last record!