A lot of the people were from Essex, but not exclusively: in the main room, a French girl was dancing with me – I only know she was French because she kept saying “I am French and I want to give you pleasure”. Nice...

There were two rooms of music; the main room featured a lineup of old skool faves, who often gig together, such as Ratpack, Nicky Blackmarket and old skool Junglist Kenny Ken. Most memorable set for me in the old skool arena was DJ Ellis Dee, who, having a change from his usual breakbeat style, played some particularly rare tunes from back in the day, including an ace remix of ‘Lord of the Dance’.
That room was hosted by Moose, Ice, MC Strict, and Everson Allen who all on bangin’ good form, but it was Strict who really got things moving with his shouty MC style reminiscent of the old outdoor illicit hardcore raves. Another thing that struck me about that main room was the fantastic laser and light show, which really put the vibe in that room on a high.

In the other room, there was breakbeats and where the best set to lose it to was the excellent breaks mix by Vinyl Vera, who skilfully blended hardcore, rave classics, jungle, and electro.

The first area we landed in, and the place we kept returning to, was the bar area, which seemed to be permanently populated by this crowd of friendly guys from Southend, and their girlfriends. There was also, curiously, an entire large wall area covered with framed magazine covers, all of which featured Eastenders star Martine McCutcheon. Either her family run the venue, or someone is very obsessed with this lady.

As we were about to leave, Lipmaster Mark joined us and did some excellent on-the-spot beatboxing. I so wish he’d do more of that in his live sets with the Ratpack.

Next party is on August 26th, at the Royal Hotel in Southend.
Check www.myspace.com/anudawn for details.

©Minnie Mouse