- This was all geared up to be a special night at 'The Palace'. It was the first psychedelic gathering at this venue since 1967. It was not just a clubbing evening but a full-on indoor festival, put on by Antiworld, in collaboration with HOM mega Production. With 50 DJ's, 5 stages and 10 international Live acts this was going to be night to remember.
There were 3 stages in the main arena, a chill out room and a VIP bar. Each stage featured a different type of music; Atmospheric Trance, Hard Dance, Urban Techno, Funky and Hard. They all went down with the 7,000 strong crowd in this massive venue all night. The Palace was decked out in drapes, plasma images, mad light shows and even a 'fun fair ride' the Waltzer!! Going on that with the alive show going on is an experience!!!
Some of the highlights of the night were DJ performances form Yoji Biomehanika, Chris Liberator and Mauro Picotto. It was the Live Acts that stole the thunder though and really interacted with the crowd.
Dali performed an excellent set and the crowd went nuts for an hour and a half, in the early hours on the main stage, which had a huge inflatable human hanging from the ceiling. After her there were 2 more brilliant Live performances from, G.M.S and Infected Mushroom. It was Infected Mushroom who got the biggest cheer of the night on the main stage and the Israelis performed one of their best sets to date. The added live guitar, coupled with a crazy light show certainly added to the performance which sent the crowd wild for the duration.
The big decision for most people was who to see for the final session, a toss up between Psycraft Live or Lab4 Live, a good prospect either way!! For me it had to be Lab4, who took to the Second Stage. This was full to the brim but with 3 minutes to go before their set they were no where to be seen..... Then 1 minute before they were meant to start Lez and Adam (Lab4) ran on stage to and everyone went crazy.
What most people did not know was that they nearly did not make it at all! Due to fog and appalling flying conditions their private jet form Holland, ferrying them from an earlier Dance Valley performance that night, was late getting into England and only just got in on time! At one point they had even discussed which tracks to drop if they had to do a shorter set...
Anyway they got straight on with it, playing a mixture of new Tracks on their forthcoming album and a few of the old classics which went down very well. They even managed to get a in a hard techno re-work of Eminen's song ‘Without Me’. Anything is possible with these guys it seems. Psycraft finished off the night on the main stage with a brilliant show too but for me Lab4 really made the place go off at the end.
When the lights came on it was the usual mixture of happiness that it was such a good past few hours, but upset that the fine music had finished. 7,000 sweaty and wasted people at 6.30 in the morning is not a very nice site! The only people who looked sane at that point were the bouncers trying to get us out and the people in the chill out room!
Another great thing about Alexandra Palace is the view over the whole of London afterwards, however I think that everyone just wanted to carry on dancing. So to all that went I know you had a great time and all those that didn't, next time Antiworld put on a festival like this get a ticket.