So if you don’t know the story Wildchild was supposed to be held in Shoreditch Park, but at short notice moved to Kings Cross Gods Yard. Given the rain and generally shitty British weather this actually turned out to be a good thing.

I was in London by 10am having had just 4 hours sleep after a night out at The Cellar in Oxford. I’d been told I would be able to park by the people at Wildchld, but this turned out to be a red herring so I had to risk leaving the car on a nearby street. Having consulted a traffic warden I was hopeful I’d be ok. Met up with my friend Nigel at the front end of the queue where we stood for the next hour or so until about 11.45am when they finally had, at least some of the rooms up and running and were happy to let us in. From the queue we observed loads of DJs not being able to park either and security checks on DJs. What the security figure a DJ will be bringing to a gig is beyond me.

Took a wander down and chilled out outside The Cross, a venue I really like and one I’d love to see D&B at one day. Plenty of housey vibes rolling in the background. Consulted the times of the DJ sets and the site setup which were fixed on huge banners on one of the outside walls. Took a wander round the old Bagley’s complex (now The Key and Canvas) to find rooms still slowly getting up and running and a few still being set up including the main Ministry of Sound room. Said hi to Alix Perez who was on in the Drum & Bass room before more wandering around. Wandered down to the Sudissential room to grab some drinks; £4.50 for a beer and £2 for a 150ml diet Coke. Settled down to listen to some Breaks downstairs.

I was keen to go check out Break in the D&B arena and found him playing an excellent set of rollers and a crowd steadily starting to get on it. Heard him drop “Innocent X”, “The Drone” and “The Helicopter Tune” in amongst a bunch of dubplates. A heavy set for so early on. By now the Ministry of Sound arena was up and running and seemed to be competing with the D&B arena for volume as you would hear the beats in the background during each breakdown. Took a walk to next door’s Hed Kandi room for some House sounds. They certainly win the prize for the promoter who made the most effort with their room with loads of banners, a screen, live percussion and sax and dancers later on.

Time for more Breaks and general meandering around to see what was going on the the crowds really started to build. The Breaks room was really rammed and stayed like that all day with some quality, funky bits getting dropped much to my approval. Decided to see how things were at The Cross. Chunky, funky House in the smallest room and more minimal House in the middle room. Not something I could dance to all day long, but the crowd, including many typical Hoxton/Shorditch sorts seemed to be loving it.

One of the sets I was most looking forward to was due with a Goldie Blue Note set having been advertised. Joined by Lowqui on the mic it became immediately obvious that we weren’t going to get any old skool vibes running. Sill the room was packed and it was going off with true Metalheadz dubplate sounds throughout. Pushed my way to the front to grab some pics and say hi to Lowqui before brocking out to the D&B beats and being treated to “Silver Blade” later on in the set. It was interesting to see Goldie sporting a new Headz t-shirt. Is the label’s fashion line finally on the way?

    

I needed to try and meet up with Nigel and catch some of Carl Craig in the only proper outdoor arena, but the heavens opened and I sought shelter by the cloakroom. Eventually I ventured out despite the rain which didn’t seem to be anywhere near stopping and made it to the nearby bar where we could meet up and still hear the distant vibes of Detroit techno. Unfortunately in the bar we were stranded having to face the rain or stay put in order to get back to the music arenas so we made a move to the Ministry of Sound room to check Smokin Jo. I was standing by the speakers with my earplugs in to start with and still felt that the volume was going to do me some permanent damage if I stayed there so we moved towards the stage. My mind was still willing, but my body was suffering after dancing the night before so I chilled out and sat on the stage for a bit. More minimal House being dropped which to be honest I couldn’t really get into.

Decided to move downstairs and back to the Breaks room. I took a short detour via Sundissential for a bit of bosh and to check out the Gold bar had changed since I DJed there way back in 2001. As I moved back to the Breaks I managed to catch up with Lowqui propping up the bar. We chatted about Audio Relief and generally what he’d been up to. Always a pleasure.

Hybrid were supposed to be doing a live set but with the limitations of space in The Key they were just DJing but as usual didn’t disappoint. I took some pics, had a dance, sat down for a bit and just sucked up the vibe.

By now The Cross had shut down in order to set up for Renaissance that evening so Canvas was more packed than ever. Xpress 2 were spinning their 6 deck, 3 mixer set which sounded pretty sweet. How they co-ordinate it all is beyond me. Stayed there or a while before moving back to a very, very sweaty Hed Kandi room. Just walking through and I was dripping and ready for a sit down. The toilets had started to overflow which made a trip to the conveniences a messy experience. I remember it being like that in the days of Bagley’s. Some things don’t change. The live sax and percussion over the vocal House worked really well with both live artists on top of their game. We left to the sounds of the Bob Marley “Sun is Shining” remix.

For the final hour and a half we drifted back to the Ministry of Sound arena for the end of Xpress 2 and then Layo and Bushwacka. They latter DJs dropped a mixed set of Minimalism, Tech House, Breaks and Funky beats including the crowd pleasers Liquid‘s “Sweet Harmony” and Layo and Bushwacka‘s own “Love Story” as things started to wind down. Finally the lights came on about 10.15pm, but it felt more like 6 in the morning. Hed Kandi were still going at it as we wandered out and I left Nigel by the outside soundstage which was still playing away. The clever marketing people from The Egg and other clubs were seizing on the opportunity to bring the punters from Wildchild to their club giving out concessionary passes and going to the effort of putting on minibuses to get clubbers from Kings Cross.

I made my way, very slowly in a steady steam of drizzle back to my car which was thankfully unticketed unclamped despite a number of warming signs in the local area giving me a bit of a scare and made it back to Oxford by 12.30am ready to hit my bed.

Overall I thought that, given the last minute nature of the change of venue, the event ran very smoothly. I can see people being disappointed at not getting the full package of live acts as promised but it seems the promoter made the best of a bad situation with the Kings Cross Goods Yard being the ideal indoor location for such an event and given the weather probably a more enjoyable experience that had it actually been Wildchild Outside.


Event report & images by DJ VOID

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