The End Arena / Reprazent

Homelands England 2000

Saturday 27th May 2000
The Bowl, Matterley Estate, nr. Winchester, Hants., England MAP

The End drum n bass Arena was rammed with a friendly and enthusiastic crowd all night - each time I was in there, it was more packed than the last, and it had been busy even at 3 in the afternoon. The quality of the line-up tempted the nation's junglists out of sweaty urban clubs to the muddy apocalypse of Matterly Bowl, and each of the acts repaid the faith of the crowd with some serious bass pressure.

Grooverider kept the atmosphere in The End's big tent bubbling along nicely without, in my humble opinion, ever blowing the roof off, while Ed Rush & Optical played their usual well worked set, and got people voicing their appreciation for the duo. Later on, Hype lived up to his name and got the crowd going by playing a darker, bassier set than DJ Zinc before him and, as usual, he cut up all the records he played with his trademark furious scratching, before having his tuff sound diluted by the crowd's rendition of Happy Birthday Dear Hype.

Thanks to the mud, I missed a few I'd have liked to have seen, but the highlight (for me) of the D&B action at Homelands was the awesome set by the full Reprazent line-up. As MC Dynamite kept reminding us, they haven't played together as a full crew for nearly two years, but it was clear that they haven't been sitting on their laurels. They played a lot of stuff from their new album, scheduled for September release, and were very polished live despite their lack of recent gigs.

The four programmers - Roni Size, Krust, Suv and Die - were arranged Kraftwerk-like behind their consoles at the back of the stage with their drummer and bassist in front of them and delivered a wicked live performance to the not-yet-too-wet crowd. Their awesome singer Onallee was also on top of her game, chatting with MC Dynamite as well as unleashing her fantastic voice over the live Reprazent sound. Bring on the new album - Reprazent are back.

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Reprazent