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| 'Sneak Beats'
- The End |
Date:
Friday 23rd January 2004
Address: The End, West Central Street, London
WC1
Occurrence: Monthly
Hours: 10pm - 6am
Ticket Price: £11
/ £13
Genre: US House
Dress Code: TBC
Capacity: 800 |
| Main Room & Lounge:
DJ Sneak, DJ Toka, Savers |
After a jaw-droppingly
infuriating rejection on the door of Fiction at
The Cross by a pea-brained ignoramus with a very
large, pink chip on his shoulder (we were turned
away because it was judged that our “reaction”
to being reminded that it was a gay night wasn’t
up to scratch), a night of mirth and disco merriment
was salvaged by the equally humungous DJ Sneak at
The End. Relatively speaking, the End was only firing
on half cylinders. The AKA chill-out room was closed,
and there was not a jock to be seen in the Lounge
Room, which acted as some form of respite zone with
it’s eerily deserted booth seemingly running
on autopilot whilst echoing the tunes of the main
room. This meant that the focus for the evening
fell more sharply than usual on the dark throbbing
of the Main Room, and more specifically, the largest
DJ I’ve ever seen. Weighing in at around the
same weight as a blue whale’s intestine, and
gowned in a super-sized American Football shirt
(it’s not really football – we play
football, they just paint their faces and hit each
other), DJ Sneak looked every bit the man-burger
hybrid, but appearances aside, he proved to be a
quality US export.
His set was a trans-atlantic blend of all things
cool, ranging from jazzy latino, through the dirty
depth of Peace Division’s “No more subliminal
shit”, to some tough-as-old-boots tech-house.
It was an eclectic mix that reached out to the perimeters
of the genre, and allowed for moments of foot to
the floor energy and…er… some head nodding
recovery time, or something. There were occasions
when the alternative space of the AKA Room and a
fully functioning Lounge Room would have added an
extra dimension to the night, but Sneak’s
tune selection coupled with the ample squidgyness
of the sofas meant that one could sneak off the
dancefloor and take some time to recharge energy
levels with sufficient impunity. On a practical
level, the small dancing space in the Lounge ensured
that if there was a tune that was just too good
to miss, the timbers were never more than a mad
clamber over a European sofa dweller away.
The End is now widely accepted to be in the top
handful of venues in the capital, if not the best,
and if it can produce a quality night when clearly
going through the motions, and with a crowd probably
half the size of that at an Underwater event, then
it is hard to argue otherwise. Not that a small
crowd is necessarily a negative thing – the
last time I was at The End it was a Bushwacka night,
and it was sweatier than a wrestler’s bum
crack. If you’ve ever inhabited a wrestler’s
bum crack (as I have) you’ll know that it
is pretty uncomfortable, and so the roomy dancing
spaces this time round were well appreciated. All
told, Sneak Beats was a decent night, although I
do wonder to what extent this could be put down
to a particularly lively and well inebriated line-up
of pals, as there was an underlying feeling that
this was a bit of a secondary event when compared
to most of the others on the calendar. If it’s
good music and a social atmosphere that you are
after in a night out then this event is ample, but
if you want to see The End operating at full potential
you may want to squeeze yourself in with the masses
on one of the showcase nights. |
Venue: 7
Music: 8
Crowd: 7
Sound System: 6
Total: 28 / 40
Rating: Silver Award |
| Review written by:
Antony Ireland |
tomscott@uk-cl.co.uk |
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