- What do you get when you cross a rocker of old with a breaks crew of new?
One hell of a Wednesday night party of course!
Tommy Lee is a significant draw card in anyone’s books, and the fact that this relatively unknown party was on a Wednesday night, in a tiny Shoreditch bar, spiced up with a string of the UK’s finest breaks providers ensured it was a surefire recipe for fun.
The night was in aid of the ‘Our World, Our Say’ charity, who are against the National Identity Register and ID Cards Bill aiming to raise awareness on the subjects. The artists gave up their time and talents to play for no charge with all proceeds going to the charity and in doing so provided a very special night.
We landed at the Medicine’s Bar at 8 or so making full use of the pints on tap and with the club downstairs not open til 9, the bar upstairs was already crammed with breaks afficionados. By the time 9 hit, the doors to the bar were already locked and there was a sizable queue forming outside for the club downstairs.
Thankfully they gave those of us in the bar priority entry via an internal door downstairs and from there on it was all out madness.
From the number of voyeurs huddled around the drum kit by the DJ booth it was safe to say Tommy Lee, who is almost as famous
for his Pammy dealings these days as he is for his epic Motley Crew lifestyle of the drum, draws a good crowd. But the real party was in the DJ booth.
Tom of Evil Nine was doing the business when we got in downstairs, warming the crowd into a frenzy with their rocky breaks style. They brought on reaction after reaction with raw breaks that easily could have put the other performances to shame. Freeland joined them in the booth throwing on a track or two at times.
A bottle of something was being swigged and passed around between Freeland, Evil Nine and in the blink of an eye, as if he could smell the alcohol going around Tommy Lee appeared out of nowhere being hurled through the tiny club by his personal body guard, just in time to take down a mouthful.
From there on the night was a huge mash up. Evil Nine continued, Freeland slapped on a few tracks, Tommy joined in behind the decks yet there was still no hint of anyone banging on the drums.
It was the vibe in the place that made the night. A vibrant, going for it crowd, with more than enough room to breathe and bust a few moves. It was definitely a relief that the night didn’t turn into a sardine fest that it very well could have.
DJ Aero (I’m assuming) got behind the decks and took over with Tommy for an hour or so. Spinning a mixture of breaks that could only be classed as lackluster following such a huge performance from Evil9 with Freeland at their side. Freeland snuck in the booth to tweak the levels when no one was watching. Tommy Lee played around with an Apple Mac and equipment of some kind while Aero was scratching up his stuff. God only knows what he was doing behind the hardware but the guy definitely knows how to have fun.
The Plump DJs took over for while, before Adam Freeland returned to the decks, the man responsible for the vocals on much of his production work, doing live versions of some of his big tunes, while Tommy got behind the drums kit. The only mission critical problem occurred when Adam realised Tommy didn’t have a monitor setup (the headphones weren’t doing the trick) and found it nearly impossible to keep the drums in time. They started out in historic trainwreck like form before any kind of synchronization was found. It was a great experience but relatively short lived. Tommy got, understandably, fed up with the sound and tossed his drum sticks into the crowd and bailed.
Freeland took over, soon joined by Evil Nine, producing a back-to-back breaks mashup with much fun and good value.
The bacon sarnie definitely saved me this morning. Now, if only my ears would stop ringing...