- It was always going to be a gamble. Putting on a "festival" in the middle of London, far from any park, on what is traditionally one of the busiest Sundays of the year. And as any UK dweller knows, August bank holiday is more often than not a wet one. All things considered, Eastern Electrics' organisers—underground party veterans Mulletover—were decidedly brave and more than a bit gung-ho.
And so it was that London awoke on Sunday to something akin to a tropical rainstorm. It pissed it down. So much so, that when Mulletover's Rob Star turned up at the venue on Sunday morning, he and his crew decided it was probably best to put the soundsystem inside. By lunchtime, of course, the rain clouds had buggered off to annoy some other promoter, and London was free from rain from there on in. The soundsystem chaps, however, were not hopeful, or arsed, enough to reinstate the rig in the outdoor area, so it stayed put in the main arch—the outdoor had to make do with some rickety old monitors instead.
Photo credit: Nik Torrens
This typified the Sunday event (Saturday's do featured Switch, Andy Butler and Zombie Disco Squad, properly cornering the student market—who, judging by the age of the Sunday's crowd and temerity of their haircuts—looked like they'd stayed down for the whole weekend) in that things just seemed to keep missing the mark—and generally by misfortune rather than mismanagement.
Earlier in the week, said Rob, the original venue was rudely shut down by a worried landlord who suddenly decided that a full-scale rave-up on his property might not be such a whizzer idea. And so it was that with just a few days to go, Eastern Electrics suddenly became south-eastern Electrics, moving a mile or so south to the rather less bumpin', but at least resident-free, Southwark. The new venue—Ewer Street car park—was well laid out, but also well grim. Four humongous, stinking damp arches that, when filled with the randomly refreshed later, looked like a scene from a documentary about London's homeless. All that was missing was a bonfire and brazier.
So, what was it like? Very promising to begin with. Fresh-faced Romanian DJ, and one-third of the mighty Arpiar, Raresh was on at an unfortunate 5 PM (due to a late booking in Leeds that evening). He played a solid swathe of tech house that was so wobbly and tumpin' it was like being at Wiggle party ten years ago. Sadly, due to the soundsystem situation, hardly anyone could take advantage of it. Outside the astroturfed courtyard area went off to the sounds of a car alarm, from a mysterious car turned rave wagon, which was parked in one corner. People were dancing round the Tandy-strength speakers—but poor old Raresh probably didn't have a clue.
Photo credit: Nik Torrens
Current producer de mode Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts dropped a tight and bouncy little set. He also looked like he was dancing more than anyone on the floor, which by this time was pretty well-filled. Last up on the Mulletover line-up was resident Geddes, whose deep, muscular techy and minimal house was as butch as anything heard at the regular parties and had many an oldie reaching for the lasers. Sadly, this was to be the last great moment (for four-four fans anyway).
The excellent Disco Bloodbath took over the room—which left a lot of the students confused and prompted an exodus to the grubbier Resident Advisor arch. Whoever did the sound in there needs shooting. It was appalling throughout the night. This was possibly down to the acoustics, though, as the sound engineers (if there were any) were obviously off on an extended break. It seemed the whole system was at an environmental-health worrying volume, yet with no actual sound coming out—a feat indeed. The best, if you could call it that, place was right next to the speakers—if you had that little regard for your ears.
Photo credit: Nik Torrens
Poor Will Saul truly battled during his set. Maybe the monitors were amazing—but you could see he couldn't quite fathom why no one was properly responding to anything he played, however increasingly epic it got. By the time Gerd Janson took over, things were marginally better, but his set veered from the sublime to the obtuse to the downright offensive ("Blue Monday"? Really?). Draw of the night, Panorama Bar ressie Cassy, didn't stand a chance after that. Bless her, she bravely battled with wine-bar quality needles that simply refused to stay on any record. And despite dropping some filthy militant techno grooves, the subtleties in her set never really came across. Shame on you, soundsystem organisers.
Just like a proper festival, the programming was a bit all over the place too (who put Maurice Fulton on at the same time as Cassy?), and after her 130bpm assault, the laid-back intellectual dub techno of Appleblim was like a shot of aural-administered Mogadon. It was shocking to see the crowd peel off in a matter of minutes.
Eastern Electrics was always going to be a gamble—and with the weather, the competition of carnival and Secretsundaze up the road—it had luck stacked against it. The super young and super girl-heavy crowd gave it the feel of something that really should have been stuck in a field, not some grubby Long-Good-Friday arches sarf of the river that would make an amazing techno venue with the right speakers. Oh well, at least, for a while, the sun shined.