review submitted by Brian Brader

Gatecrasher Summer Soundsystem 2000

Saturday 17th to Sunday 18th June 2000
Turweston Park, Turweston, Brackley, Northants. NN13 5YD, England
around £45 (plus fees)

To all of us Cyber-clubbers; this was the biggest event of the year. We hadn't bothered with Homelands (too diverse a music scene for our liking) and Creamfields, despite promise, would again result in being a "beer boy" scene and leave us feeling alienated.

We'd spent ages arranging meeting places, outfits, customes and wacky ideas for the day. Stargazer UV paint was bought by the gallon load, as were latex costumes, dummies and flashing lights.

The atmosphere at 2pm was electric and large crowds of cyberkids were milling about, edgy and excited. The minute the doors opened, you saw most of us flock towards the Hard house tent...and for many, like me...that was where we stayed.

It's not that we didn't want to wander...we did..but how could we leave Andy Farley for John Kelly? Or Lashes for anyone? Even though most of us found Fergie to fast to dance too (good ol' Fergie) we found it impossible to leave.

I did managed to drag myself away at one point...to hear seb Fontaine banging out techno like trance and to get near the Gatecrasher arena but give up.

There is a photo of over 40 Crasher kids lined up outside hard nation and I'd love to see it - and the one that some of us had took at 6am as a measure of how good the event had been is worth a view aswell. The most common phrase of the night was "everything they done wrong at new years they've made up for," and "this is so hard!"

At 4am on the grass the messy and muntered were saying "Sundissential should do something like this. Now that'd be cool." "Or Totally Mashed." "Yeah." We didn't care that only Dance music was covered, that is our forte and anything else a waste of time.

We wandered out at 6am - infact, many of our mates had made the long trek upto Sheffield for Insomniacz - proper hardcore clubbing - and we carried onto party. We were thrown off the site at about 12...

Same time next year then eh?