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The Talismanic JOOF Weekend Review:
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| Hypersky |
Here's the all around JOOF Review for the Weekend for both the San Francisco and Vegas shows.....
Saturday morning, drove down to Rancho Santa Margarita to pick St. Michael up and made our way to SF. Got there at around 7 in the evening and headed straight to Blowfish for a quick bite before the show. We weren't sure if John was going on at 10, so we got to 1015 well early just in case. Walked in to the club at 10 and got the royal tour of the place from Leslie :) who showed us areas of the club I didn't even know existed when I used to go there during its heyday in the last 90s/early 2000s. Apparently there is a glass ceiling above the main room that is not visible if you are standing, looking up from inside the main room, but you can see the room from above looking down, and you can walk on the glass. There is a special area where you can stand above the main room and look directly at the DJ booth. After that we are in the lounge are beside the DJ booth and John walks in.
One of the first things he says is 'Christopher Lawrence is playing up the road. I just rang him and he might stop by after his set'. John went on at around 1145 or so and started off with some lower 130s Prog-Psy for about the hour and a half - again loads of stuff I've never heard before and we found ourselves jumping up wondering what just happened.
I didn't bother trying to ID nearly 6 hours of music, although as usual, there was a good deal of Astrix including Fire, Poison, Life System, and Coolio (Infected Mushroom mix), that increasingly infamous psy bootleg of The Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl, The Prodigy's - Narayana (Alex & Stealthy Mix), That new Psy Mix of Soft Cell's Tainted Love, Olive Prime's Radium, and again all of this was interspersed with vast amounts of new material that wasn't even played in LA on May7th.
The first two hours were decidedly dark and long and then we could gradually hear the trade mark JOOF Psy kicks smashing through at around the two hour mark - and then came the Astrix, Wizzy Noise, Protoculture, Silicon Sound, and the rest of the psy. It was a classy reprieve from the usual long breakdown anthems that most trance djs seem to use. John looks back and says "This is the stuff YOU like isn't it"? :D
Then at around 4ish Christopher Lawrence walks in and says hello. Christopher and his brother stayed on for a good hour, watching John's set, mingling, and then actually going out on the floor and dancing before eventually heading off to the airport. After chatting with Christopher, I can see why he and JOOF are friends. The guy just oozes class and respect from head to toe.
Around 5ish, I walked to the back of the main room and looked back at the whole thing and felt the same magic from the early Release and Spundae days, when it used to be packed to the rafters. The energy was fantastic. That room has something special about it, even though its probably seen its finer days. Now that was amazing.
John ended things around that time. Me and St Michael stayed for another 45 min or so and then walked out to be greeted by a bright sunny day. We grabbed a coffee, did some last minute (cough) mingling and then hit the road for Vegas. BTW, this has to be mentioned - DJ Cyber Joe went on after John and did a fantastic job of maintaining the energy. Some of the tracks he threw on were absolutely brilliant. I definitely recommend checking him out. I had a chance to chat with him outside the End Up a bit later and he definitely has his heart in the right place.
The long car trip just reminded me of how important sleep is. Around half way through the trip things started to go a bit surreal since we hadn't slept much over the past two days and still had another day, night, and half of another day of pretty much no sleep ahead.
We got to Vegas around 630 in the evening and immediately hit a bed for an hour or two of sleep before heading off to the strip. Got to the Paris around 9, grabbed some dinner and walked around the vast pathways of slots. We finally met up with John at around 1145 and walked up to the Risque.
The place was small and seemed to be decked out with people who didn't know much about why they were there (ie they weren't there for the DJs, but to gamble, drink, and do whatever the hell people who go to Vegas do). The dance floor was way small - think about one third of the size of the Spundae back room at Circus, and so when John mercifully relieved the DJ before him, the place got extremely packed. This time he only went on for two hours but managed to impress even the most ardent group of Vegas wannabes that Psy trance is great when you're drinking!
John kicked things off a bit more muted because the DJ before him was spinning house and was flanked with two guys playing LIVE bongo drums, one of them actually continued to beat his drums during the beginning of John's first track. The cheek! More of the same great stuff from the night before, although this set was closer to two hours, after which the music went south again. All in all a fantastic experience over two days. Great music, connected with a lot of people, and reconnected with some I hadn't seen in some time. Incredibly exhausting experience, but just as much fun as well! :)
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| Clovis86 |
| We got to Vegas Sunday and just decided to get a hotel and sleep...Sasha and Desyn destroyed me Saturday...I was just too worn out to stand up. Probably the first and last time I'll ever willingly miss J00F |
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| Hypersky |
| Clovis, he'll be back later this summer for another show at 1015. He's got a quarterly residency there now, and we are definitely going up when he comes back. |
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| Clovis86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Hypersky
Clovis, he'll be back later this summer for another show at 1015. He's got a quarterly residency there now, and we are definitely going up when he comes back. |
Cool...I will consider going for sure :)
I just want to be 100% when I see J00F...because I know he brings it. |
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