I've spent much of the season seeing the beautifully designed Defected billboards telling me that my “journey starts here”, so it was nice to see that 5 months down the line, and with only a few weeks of the season left, I finally saw the message I'd be looking for. Walking in to Pacha I saw “The journey ends here...” on a little poster, and a wave of relief came over me... this is what I must have been working towards all this time! Praise the lord.
I have to say there wasn't an ounce of disappointment in me as I left the club on Sunday morning. Not that that's unusual, or that something normally bothers me enough at every night to mention, it was just one of those parties where everything seemed to come together quite nicely. Again, it was an entirely sober one for me (this is serious work you know), but I remember saying after I'd got home that I could quite happily do those sort of sober parties every night of the week if I had to. The music was top notch thanks to DJ of the season Solomun, a typically cool a big tune filled set from Tensnake with live PA from Syron and man at the top of the Defected pyramid of power - Simon Dunmore.
Usually that's enough for any party to go off, but with the booth now relocated back to it's original (albeit refurbished) location to the right of the main stairs down to the dancefloor and seemingly involving more of the room in the action, the dancers who are actually really entertaining to watch, and the calibre of clubber in attendance all rolled in to one, it made for a really well put together package.
Simon played an extended 3-hour set from opening at midnight, dropping one of my favourite tracks of the season - Lee Curtiss' 'Body Twitch', complete with those down right filthy lyrics of course. I Love it. Throw in 'Party Non Stop', Michel Cleis' 'Mir A Nero' (played twice over the course of the night) and 'Hallelujah Anyway' of Larse creation and sporting the vocals of Candi Staton, and you've the making of what was a really, really enjoyable opening set by Simon. I imagine it must be nice for the guy to get out of running the business and just enjoy playing the music he loves, it certainly seemed that way on Saturday night.
On then to a unique performance by Tensnake. I saw him play not all that long ago at Ushuaïa for Sasha's parties, and in all honesty the set was quite similar. It's all good though as it had live elements to it, including a live PA from Syron for the track 'Mainline' which is a collaboration between the two artists. There are huge old school 90's dance music vibes all over this track, one to properly get your dance on to, and truth be told... Nike trainers and hot pants have never looked so good. The beautiful Tensnake remix of Radiohead's 'Everything In Its Right Place' was of course played - it's such a tune - and was another track played at the Sasha party. It'll take a while for me to tire of that one though.
I suspect a good proportion of the crowd were here to see Solomun really. Now he's got nothing to do, with his Diynamic Neon Night parties enjoying their closing party two Tuesday's ago at Sankeys, Solomun has been popping up here there and everywhere - you can catch him at the Paradise closing on Thursday and Privilege closing in the coming weeks too. He really is one of, if not the, DJ of the season, much like Jamie Jones last year, such is the level of his popularity. By now we all know the kind of music he plays, I'm talking tracks like 'Connected' by Walker & Royce mixed in with Missy Elliot's 'Work It'. That blend of good fun deep house and classic/comical hip-hop works so well. It's not music to keep your head down to in your own little world, it's music to stand around in a group laughing and raving to. It was a shame I was on my own really, otherwise that's exactly what I would have done. But, to be honest, I was more than happy to just watch from side's, satisfied in the knowledge that everyone was having a bloody great time. Lovely.
