Dance Day - overview (2)

Essential Festival 2000

Saturday 15th to Sunday 16th July 2000
Stanmer Park , Brighton, England

Getting to the Essential Festival in Brighton was the easiest of any festival so far this summer. The train from Brighton was crowded, but as it only took 7 minutes it really didn't bother me. We arrived with a steady stream of people at 2:30pm, but there everyone moved through the gates quickly - everyone that is, except for those picking up tickets. Still, I only had to wait 20 minutes in the queue, so I can't really complain.

We wandered around the site, which was tiny compared to Gatecrasher et al, never mind Glastonbury, but nicely laid out. The site is a park the rest of the year round, which gave us the novelty of sitting (or lying) on neatly cut grass. Not as crowded as I expected: most of the tents (six in all) weren't full for most of the day.

Anyway, to the music. Two of the tents (World Dance and the Legends of the Dark Black) were drum n' bass, two were different shades of breakbeat (Big Beat Boutique and Experiments and only one house tent (Pussycat)?! Makes a nice change.

The first band we caught was the Herbaliser in the main tent. They usually put on a good show, but their blend of modern funk and hip hop wasn't really doing it for me. Still, good head nod music. We moved over to the BBB tent to see a bit of the Jungle Brothers, who were pretty depressing. I defended them when they were bringing out big beat and jungle records, and everyone else was dissing them for not sticking to their traditional roots. On Saturday they were just parodies of their former selves, still leaping around the stage dressed in safari gear, and delivering unappealing rhymes over some uninteresting beats. I didn't stay to see if they played many of their hits - it was just too painful.

Moving swiftly on, we headed up to the Legends of the Dark Black arena, which was pretty crowded compared with the other tents. True to their name, Bad Company were dropping some hard - assed beats and dark basslines to a well up for it crowd, who joined the MC (Junior Red, I think) in politely requesting a reload for that Bad Company tune with all the strings at the start which they delivered.

Luke Slater live in the BBB tent was pretty good. He started his set with some blistering electro n' breaks, but returned to his techno roots about halfway through - all produced by much knob twiddling from an unsmiling Mr Slater and ponytailed friend. The only real reason he wasn't ace was that he didn't play "Freek Funk" or "Love" - but then I left before the end, so I hope I didn't just miss them.

Checked out my first breakbeat of the day with Dave Tipper, who played some wicked dark, bassy tunes in the Experiments tent, but didn't look like he was enjoying himself - he was just standing around between tunes, not even pretending to get busy on the decks. Perhaps it was the crusty techno band on next complete with two fiddlers, who kept pestering him throughout his set. Keeping with tha breaks we went to Freq Nasty, who delivered the same sort of stuff to a larger crowd, with a few more housey elements thrown in. And looked like he was enjoying it. He dropped some big tunes, including Acido de Bass's "Dooms Night" (which I heard about at least three times during the weekend) and his own "Move Back".

I caught the end of Kosheen in the World Dance tent, who were playing with their female vocalist - nice not to hear an MC for a change. Kenny Ken followed, and I was suprisingly impressed with his selection - not bad at all. Caught the end of Laurent Garnier's crazy Gallic show with young ladies holding up giant mirrored triangles (I think?). All a bit strange. I ended up at my old favourites, Layo & Bushwacka, who delivered a good set to finish. Funky breaks inna tech-house stylee was the order of the day including their own "She Disrespek Me", Bushwacka's awesome remix of Leuroj and "Dooms Night".

Layo & Bushwacka

It was really refreshing to see a festival supporting some none house dance music, especially after the four - four dominated Homelands and Gatecrasher and the forthcoming Creamfields. But the music was not just non - house dominated: it wasn't dominated by one style at all really (well, I guess there were quite a lot of breakbeats..). I guess that reflects Brighton's more underground musical tendancies. Homelands organisers take note!

review by: Luke Williams

photos by: Dik Naef