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REVIEW: Menno De Jong & Matt Hardwick @ The Gallery, Ministry of Sound, London
Hey all
I went to MOS last night to see Menno and Matt (Paul Oakenfold was on too but f*** him! he's awful now such a shame but let's not go on about that....)
Wow what a night, absolutely f***ing amazing time! Menno and Matt were absolutely awesome, Matt was the better of the two, and I have to say, is one of the most underrated DJ's ever. How he isn't massively in the spotlight is beyond me!
So I got on the train from where I live to Liverpool Street to meet Cosmique and his girlfriend (Helen).
We then walked about for like 10 minutes to find something to eat as none of us had eaten since lunchtime and at 11pm we found a nice indian restaurant near Liverpool Street and just got there in time before it closed 
Then we got the bus to Elephant & Castle and went into the MOS there..... really impressive nightclub to be honest, there was a VIP Lounge upstairs which looked really cool and there was also an upstairs bar area which was really cool, they had this massive chandalere (dodgy spelling) hanging from the ceiling in this beautiful shade of green, it looked awesome they played mostly prog and tech house in there. Then downstairs was the main bar area which had some more house stuff, not really my cup of tea but that was a really cool area, looked awesome, the bar was huge.....and it was pretty packed in there. Then there was a room called 'Big Box' which hosted a 'Classifique' night last night, lots of Trance Classics in there, was awesome, but every time we went in there it was hard house sort of classics, not really what I would call Trance, but the best song while I was in there was a remix of Arrola - Dreamin, which everybody sang to in dodgy spanish, including me and Sven 
And then, last but not least, the main room, OMG! Was fantastic, the lighting and the sound system, jesus titty f***ing christ.... I walked in there and was deafened, the volume was so loud (it actually was so loud vocals on some tracks got distorted), I wisely got some ear plugs to protect my ears later on in the evening from an ever so slightly attractive big breasted blonde, think it took me like 15 seconds to remember what I was gonna ask for  :P
But yeah, the sound system was really impressive, it was making my stomach shudder with ever beat, was not so good early on as we had eaten only like 1 hour before we got there, but after a while it was okay....
Now on to the DJ's....
We skipped Paul Oakenfold, because I've heard so many bad things about him now, we all agreed to ignore him, so we did, and we went into the Classifique room to see a DJ there 'Steve Arnold' who was spinning Trance Classics. It was really good in there, he played awesome stuff, including BBE - Seven Days And One Week and the Arrola - Dreamin remix I mentioned earlier. We then got a drink from the bar and decided to have a rest, we had all had long days and Sven and Helen were feeling particularly tired (they had finished work and drove to Berlin Tegel airport and got a flight to Stansted, then they got the train to their hotel, took their luggage away and left the hotel almost immediately to travel to Liverpool Street and meet me, so I didn't blame them for feeling tired at all!!
After having a walk around for a little but we decided to go into the main room and man, Matt Hardwick was absolutely amazing, he played so many brilliant tracks, I've always rated him as a DJ from what I had heard but never saw him live, until last night. He blew me away, bloody fantastic assortment of tunes, the crowd were loving it, superb warmup for Menno and as I mentioned previously, he does not get the credit he deserves. He s***s all over Tiesto that's for sure!
I recorded quite a few videos I was there, and will link them below, I need almost all of the tracks ID'd, I've been really out of the scene for a while now with new trance so I dont know a lot of these tracks, but last night made me realise that Trance is still very good, I've just got to search for a bit more.... There are too many people producing Trance now with a 'computerised' feel to it, I hate it. But I won't rant about that....
After Matt Hardwick's set was nearing a close we decided to go and get another drink from the bar and rest our feet for a while, we all just sat in silence relaxing and listening to the music, Sven and Helen were falling asleep but I was wide awake (I had caught 2 hours sleep before I left home to get to Liverpool Street, something I'm really pleased I had done....)
After our rest had finished we hurried back to the main room just in time to see Menno start his set at 4am this morning (eek!). The rest as they say is history, the crowd were going mental, loving every track he played, both Menno and Armin are the kings of Trance right now, the interaction Menno has with the crowd is great, and you could tell he loved every single minute of his set, he had a beaming smile the whole way through, I wish there were more DJ's around that really gave a s*** about the crowd, but there are far too many arrogant pricks around now (like Tiesto).
Menno played some really really good tracks, some of which I recorded parts of on my mobile (see below). It was approaching 5am when Sven and Helen were almost falling asleep sat on the floor in the corner (but I was still dancing and dancing and dancing, so glad I had those 2 hours sleep hehehe!), Sven then woke up and said that he thinks that he and Helen should travel back to the hotel as they are too tired, so I went outside with them and said my goodbyes and then went back in to the club to catch the rest of Menno's set, which had Veracocha - Carte Blanche as a classic near the end. I left just before Menno was finishing to beat the crowds leaving in their masses.
I then waited 20 minutes for a bus to Liverpool Street and I eventually got back home at 7.30am and got a lift home from my mum (bless her) to get to bed at 8.30am this morning!
And here I am now!
But yeah, in summary, what a superb superb night, I'm definitely going back to MOS soon, the lineups there are superb and I'm hoping people can head there in the future for a GTA Meetup or something? Would be awesome....Sven will tell you how great the club was, even though he was half-asleep, too old for this shit now Sven?
Hope you enjoyed the read, sorry if I've waffled on a bit, I just wanted to type what was in my head and I cant be bothered to review what I've read ;-)
I'll post the videos below....if you know the track names please tell me! :-)
Here are a couple of pics I took with my phone:-
Next stop, Berlin for Eternal Night in 2 weeks, wooooohoooooo
Cheers
Simon
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How can sound exist if there's no one there to hear it?
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