- Nothing can really prepare you for the sheer size of matter. It is an immense venue and—incidentally—one which befits a DJ and producer of John Digweed's calibre. Stepping into Room 1, the first thing that hits you is the very simple open-plan layout of the club, which is easily twice as big as Fabric's equivalent.
By the time we got there, Diggers had already been on for about an hour and was teasing the crowd with some epic progressive house numbers that would continue to destroy the floor well into the morning. I thought this is what it might have been like to witness some of Digweed's early legendary Global Underground sets. Seeing Digweed at matter, compared to Stealth in Nottingham where I saw him last, made all the difference. The effort that has gone into the venue and the state-of-the-art soundsystem transports you to another place completely. The sound, to put it simply, is better than you could imagine.
Standing to the side of the super-sized booth, I noticed three other technicians in the box with Digweed. At this point it began to sink in what running an event like this—in a club like this—demands from the engineers. With one guy monitoring the speakers and another two above the DJ controlling the lights, it became a futuristic theatrical experience, with Digweed controlling the soundtrack.
Later on in the night, I wandered into the next room to check out Tom Middleton. It's a more homely and intimate space—and feels as though you might have happened upon the DJ playing in your favourite bar. This relaxed ambience suited Middleton's style perfectly, providing a welcome respite from the more focused nature of Room 1. Looking around the place, you couldn't find a single person that didn't have a smile on their face, head tilted back, getting down to Jimpster's remix of "Those Days."
With the floor in full swing towards the end of his set, Middleton dropped Laurent Garnier's classic "The Man with the Red Face." As you could imagine, this suitably stoked the fire, and squirted some lighter fluid on it for good measure. As it played, Lars "Funk D'Void" Sandberg walked past on the way to the booth, set to take over the controls. Lars launched into his set with vigour, as Middleton nodded his head in approval.
As I looked down on Room 1 from the slightly disconcerting bridge suspended in the air, the crowd had become one mass tide, seething in the darkness as Digweed meandered through two decades of music mastery ending up at the present with M.O.D.E.'s remix of "Heaven Scent."
Exiting the club, the overall consensus was that Digweed was well and truly on form, and I couldn't have agreed more. As one guy commented on the way out, "Digweed is the godfather of progressive," a status that one would argue he shares equally with Sasha. His power and control over the audience could only be best described as omnipotent this particular night. As for the club? If it can withstand the full force of 2,500 Digweed fans, then it can probably cope with any event promoters decide to throw at it.