Jammy’s Jaunts: 06.07 – 08.07 – BLOC & Rhythmatic

Hey and welcome to Jammy’s Jaunts! A weekly round-up of my weekend’s proceedings. This weekend mainly consisted of the highly anticipated Bloc and Rhythmatic. So to start off the weekend, I started my Jaunts on Friday at Bloc, which was at London Pleasure Gardens (LPG). As a massive weekender of electronic music which ended a massive failure. I can’t really begin to say or understand what happened last Friday. A complete disaster and debacle which has now ended in the unfortunate bankruptcy of Bloc. So anyway, I arrived at Pontoon Dock (where LPG is situated) around 10pm and walking up past the queue, I could see that it was already kicking off. The sheer amount of people queuing up and congregating around the entrance was phenomenal. Countless numbers of people pushing, jumping the queue and the atmosphere was really tense already. The amount of police by the entrance could not cope with the extreme mass of people. From reports of what people have said and what I have heard, it seemed as these people had been queuing up for at least 2 hours max and you could easily see the agitation building up. As I had a press pass, I walked down the road to the press queue and all I could see was an endless line of people queuing up, little did they know what was going to happen later on in the evening.

  

I finally got to the gate where they were allowing people with a press ticket through and  after 10 minutes I was allowed in. It was quite overwhelming being there and the sights and the sounds were really appealing, but now looking back with hindsight that was a total con. I walked around the site for a bit and tested out my press pass which was cool to have, but all I was interested in was checking out the main tents and actually finding out where all my friends were. Walking towards the main arenas and taking in the cool sights, I was soon met by a wall of people and began to realise that there was way too many people actually at Bloc. Every arena I walked past was rammed, people over flowing and just general chaos and disorder. There was no planned organisation. I actually couldn’t walk through to any part as I was met by sheer amount of people. It was very frustrating. No way was I going to get to the Stubnitzor the main arena. I walked back to the main entrance and put my coat in the cloakroom (bad idea as you will find on later!)

  

Eventually I found my friends and queued up in the crush to get to the RA hub where Xhin was playing. The only act I caught was him and saw him for about 30 minutes. As he was playing, there were rumours that tents and Bloc was getting shut down due to the safety of the public not being guaranteed. Twitter and Facebook was alive with activity and sure enough, we left the RA tent and floods of people were leaving the main arena. The music on the boat had stopped and everyone had left, what a travesty! As we began to leave, we were met with a wall of police who had formed a line stopping people going over to the other side of the venue. I had to get to the other side as my jacket was in the cloakroom over there, so luckily the security let me round and I went to get it. The Carhartt domeby then had people still inside, but they were stopping people from going in. Eventually we left around 1am and massed onto the streets. The people on the streets trying to leave and get home was simply unbelievable. You really had to be there to believe it. Odd scuffles between people and police was evident, buses taking people home were everywhere and the crush to get on them was ridiculous. In the end we walked from Pontoon Dock to Canning Town. My feet were hurting for all the wrong reasons. A perfect line I think to end the  disastrous night. All I did was walk around at Bloc.

Saturday was a much better day from the aftermath of Bloc. My good friend Ceri was playing for Rhythmatic at Shutter Studios and so I went to support her. Located in Hackney Wick not far from Hub Studios and The Dairy (where Spilt Milk) is situated. The set times were Odsounds B2B Ham Solo 11-12:30, Ceri 12:30 – 2, Stathis Lazarides 2 – 3:30, Three 3:30 – 6:30, Three B2B Archie 6:30 – 7:30. The last Rhythmatic party I went to was their birthday at Hearn St car park where Marco Carola was headlining and it was notorious for being absolutely freezing! I think I kept my jacket on the whole night! The vibe and the venue was really nice. Intimate settings and the music really reflected that and it was nice to see new DJ’s that I have never seen play before such as Ceri, Three and Archie Hamilton. The music was groovy tech house with some deep elements and it suited the mood and feel of the party. It was nice to go to something different and I made a big sacrifice as I knew the Plexboys had something very special going on down in South London! But nonetheless, I had a great time and you make it, what it is at the end of the day. The Rhythmatic crowd were really up for it and Ceri warmed things up really well for Stathis Lazarides to take control of things. The main highlight was DJ Three and he really got the vibe down for the crowd. As daylight broke through the plastic sheets in the ceiling, the night was ended by Ceri dropping the most fitting tune to end the night!

The last port of call was Jaded afterhours…Residents Chris Stanford and Raymundo Rodriguez were playing plus Tom Budden. The morning was pretty much outstanding as usual and very busy. I know I review Jaded every week and it does get boring hearing the same thing, but if you have not witnessed it, it’s hard to know what it was really like, so I won’t go into much detail, apart from Jaded being a great way to end the weekend! Same time, next weekend?! Peace!