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| Sundissential |
Date:
Saturday 7th June 2003
Address: The Sanctuary, Digbeth, Birmingham
Occurrence: Weekly
Hours: 9.30pm –
4am
Ticket Price: £10
/ £12
Dress Code: Sundi Best
Genre: Hard, more hard
and a bit of funky
Capacity: 800 |
Sundissential:
EDDIE HALLIWELL, ILOGIK, TARA REYNOLDS, ADAM SHERIDAN
Funkissential: JAMES BIRCH,
DAVE OLDERSHAW, BONNAR
Dragon Bar: DION, MAXMANIC |
Being the UK Mecca of
Hard House, the odd trip to Sundissential is high
priority for any clubber with a penchant for the
hard stuff. Living down south, I’ve only managed
a visit once before – when the Sunni D shrine
was DNA; a gob smacking expanse of club where I
spent a large part of my night gawping in awe at
the sheer size and incredible atmosphere of the
strange new world that surrounded me. Unfortunately,
The Sanctuary, Sundissential’s new (and previous)
home, is not quite as great. Judging from the success
of the Sunni D brand, and having experienced DNA,
I was really expecting a bit more from the venue.
The Sanctuary building feels a bit like an old school:
wooden stairways in need of a lick of paint, toilets
with a liquid carpet the size of Lake Michigan,
and those looming double swing doors (which remind
me instantly of my old upper school assembly hall
and the start of at least 30 minutes of disinterested
hell, otherwise known as hymn singing.)
But… despite initial disappointment at the
venue, disinterest was not on the agenda for this
evening. This was Sundissential after all, and from
my first step inside the door, I was surrounded
(amongst other things) by a whole host of cyber
kids, girls (and boys) in bikinis, bananas in pyjamas,
cross-dressers and people with freakishly dangerous
hair. At first glance, they look like all the people
regular school rejected. For smoking too much and
wearing the wrong trousers and generally causing
havoc in class. I used to be one of those people
(I now like to think I function as a slightly more
integral part of society!), but in the midst of
it all, I did find it disturbingly easy to throw
myself back into a more bouncy, happy, carefree
place. A place where there’s lots to learn.
Where extraordinary is ordinary and weird is wonderful.
And where the Sunni D crowd lose that eccentric
edge and turn into just another bunch of friendly
playmates. Remember kids…..don’t judge
a book by its cover (and all that)!
Sundissential operates a strictly no drugs policy.
With this in mind, it makes you wonder what they
put in the water up in Birmingham, to produce the
loudest and possibly most insane bunch of individuals
I have ever come across. As most of you will know,
Sunni D has its own very definitive crowd of followers
with a very individual style. People are keen to
fit in here, as I discussed with a short, yellow
cyber kid wearing a lot of UV make-up. Our conversation
went something like this:
Cyber Chris: “Hello. I’m Cyber Chris.
Are you a virgin?”
Me: “Pardon?”
Cyber Chris: “Is this your first time here?”
Me: “Well, yes, first time here; second time
at Sundissential”.
Cyber Chris: “Yeah…..I can tell!”
Me: “Pardon?!”
Cyber Chris: “Well…you look like a townie.”
Me: “No I don’t”.
Cyber Chris: “Yes you do!”
Me: (looks lightly forlorn) “I do not! Townies
wear Ben Sherman shirts and River Island frocks.
I, in case you hadn’t noticed, am wearing
a ridiculously small combat skirt and an almost
as ridiculously small top”
Cyber Chris: “Oh….don’t worry.
You get used to it. I mean….first time I was
here I didn’t have a clue either. But you’ll
soon get an idea of what to wear and you’ll
be fine”.
At this he bounced off to refill his water bottle
with a rather disgruntled Me shouting “I’ve
got bondage studs on my shoeeeeeeees!!”
You see, I’m not normally one to care too
much about the opinion of others, especially in
matters as trivial as dress, but at Sundissential,
surrounded by people who dress to digress, an outfit
says it all. Sadly, I was not (and still am not)
fully literate in the rules of the Sunni D school,
but at least I have now ‘been there, done
that’ and, unless it bothers me that much,
I’ll have to put up with new girl status…unless
I buy the t-shirt!
As a night though, Sundissential is still scoring
high and proof to us all that hard is still as popular
as ever. Although I’d place the unisex toilets
on a near parallel to those at Glastonbury Festival
1998 (the one where it rained non-stop and my tent
provided a re-route for the River Nile), you can’t
fail to love Sundissential for being what it is.
A perfect assembly of mentalists regressing joyfully
to the days they loved the most. If you hated school,
try Sunni D. The chances are you’ll love it!
Pammy T xx
P.S Having just completed this literary
masterpiece, I’ve just realised I hardly mentioned
the music at all. Due to a number of (equally crap)
reasons, (one being that my legs failed to work
hard enough to make it up the stairs), I spent a
lot of my night in the Dragon Bar. So can I just
say that Maxmanic (who, thanks to Tidy Tash, is
now known as ‘Baby Eddie’ [Halliwell])
rocks and next time we want him in the main room.
Over and out!! |
Venue: 6
Music: 9
Crowd: 9
Sound System: 7
Total: 31 / 40
Rating: Silver Award |
| Review written by:
Pammy T |
pammy_t@uk-cl.co.uk |
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